The Cinammon Story - Chapter One: The Water Tank

 

 I had heard them the night before on the roof and they were loud, unmistakable cries. I thought I’d pay the munchkins a visit – you know, to be a responsible citizen; also, mostly because I can’t just keep away from kittens. I climbed the metal stairs onto the cemented terrace and all I could think was about how quiet it was. Almost too quiet… call it spidey-sense if you want to, but my gut was telling me NOT to go further. Only, I wasn’t going to let my gut talk me into going back down. Taking guarded steps, I peered around the landing on top of the mini-terrace – nothing. No sudden blasts of color, no sudden movements and definitely no fur-balls. 

“Hiss!” I froze. The sound was coming from behind me and I could tell by its intensity that I had hit the jackpot – sort of. I turned to see the origin of the deadly voice and I was five feet apart from the Mama Cat herself. Black coat glistening, lime green eyes burning, crouching in an attacking posture – she was the epitome of a murderer; with fangs. 

“I’m sorry,” I put up my hands defensively, only to realize that Mama Cat isn’t really well versed with human verbal or non-verbal communication skills and I had no idea about cat-talk apologies. I breathed in, trying to figure out a way out of the paws of my impending ‘death’ and remembered a talk show on YouTube that was based on real-life situations such as these. The animal trainer had asked the people who were feline phobic to approach the felines with slow blinking of the eyes – especially when the cat was not taking its eyes off of you. I decided to wing it and got down on my knees and crouched in front of her taking care not to arch my back. That must’ve been the wrong signal; she started arching her back and was hissing again – so I closed my eyes. The hissing stopped and when I opened my eyes again, she was just staring at me. She didn’t move – she simply blinked; twice. Well, YouTube may be right after all. I didn’t want to make any hurried movements that would probably be harmful for me, so I stayed put – slowly blinking my eyes whenever Mama Cat decided to look my way. 

Ten minutes later, my knees were hurting, my back sore and my shoulders cold. Suddenly, Mama Cat got up and scuttled into the mini-water tank enclosure; with a different ‘meow’. That wasn’t what made me smile – it was the mini-meows that came a few seconds after that. I’d found them. ‘Now, I only have to come back when the mother isn’t around’, was my only thought while climbing down those metal stairs. 

 To Be Continued...