When Rudy awoke in an endless field of soft waving grass,
she carefully raised her head and then stretched out to her full length. She looked over her shoulder and saw the tip
of her full fluffy tail gently moving up and down in the grass. Rudy stretched again, marveling at the
strength in her legs and how easily they extended fully in the stretch. She then leaped into the air, executed a
corkscrew backflip and landed perfectly on all four paws. She laughed and did it again and laughed even
harder when she flubbed the corkscrew and the flip and ended up sprawled in the
grass. She rolled onto her back and laughed
harder and then curled to try to catch her beautiful full tail. She’d made it! This was the real Pottawatomie.
She was still sprawled in the grass, stalking her tail when
another cat showed up. It wasn’t anyone
familiar to Rudy’s disappointment, but she jumped up, gave the other cat a mock
blow to the head and exclaimed, “I’m here! I’m here! I made it to Pottawatomie! The Great Cat took
pity on me and didn’t punish me for being such a hissy cat. Please, take me to my friends. I know they’re waiting for me. There’s LT and Peep and the grey horse and
oh, I want to see them sooooo much.
Please, let’s go!” Rudy stood, poised
to spring off in whatever direction the other cat seemed inclined to go, but
the other cat was looking at her somewhat oddly.
“Yes, Rudy, you are in Pottawatomie, but I’m usually the one
who tells the new cats where they are.
How could you know? My name is Gaia,
by the way.”
“Well, you see, Gaia, it’s this way. I was a very old cat, and I’d outlived all my
friends, the cat ones you know. The new,
kid, Sparky, is okay, but she’s a little on the wacky side. I’ve been slowing down a lot these past few
months, but up until the last couple weeks, it’s been okay. The daddy feeds me almost anything I want
that he’s eating, but my tummy didn’t work the same as when I was young, but
you don’t want to hear about that. He
made sure I was on the bed to snuggle with him at night, and when the Mommy
came home on weekends she’d snuggle me and pet me and love me so much that
sometimes I had to hiss a bit to get her to let me have a nap. But just recently my legs haven’t been
working so well, and sometimes I couldn’t even move them at all. Everything started to hurt most of the time
in the past few days, so I slept a lot.
I kept having dreams every time I fell asleep. Each time the dreams grew a little clearer
until…” at this, Rudy choked up a little
bit and looked at Gaia with tears in her eyes.
“It was probably just after midnight when I fell asleep, and
finally the dream was as clear as day.
The Peep was standing in front of me, and she told me that it was time
to come to Pottawatomie, except that I should say goodbye to the daddy and the
Mommy first and ask them to help me open the door. She said that if they’d help I’d get through
nice and easy and it wouldn’t hurt and after that nothing would hurt
anymore. If I didn’t ask them, or they
didn’t understand then it would be a lot harder and probably hurt a lot until I
made it through. LT walked up out of the
mist (did I say it was misty in the dream?
It was, and we were standing with our paws in what looked like clouds)
and he said that the Peep was right, and that I should go back now and say good-bye
and ask the Mommy and daddy to send me to Pottawatomie.
“So I did. I woke
them up with the most god-awful caterwauling and I kept it up for probably two
hours to make sure they got the message.
They did, and when my legs were working a bit, the Daddy helped me to go
outside and I used the poo field and said good-bye to it also. I called out a good-bye to any of the cats
from the Cat Club who might be within hearing, telling them I was heading for Pottawatomie,
and not to miss me, because I’d be with Peep and LT. I didn’t mention the Grey horse, but that’s
only because none of them knew him or probably had even heard me talk about him,
other than complaining that he was the one who messed up my legs and made them
ache so much in the cold weather. I went
inside, sniffing at the cold air, and looked up at the stars and whispered them
a soft good-bye. I didn’t know if the
same stars would be shining here, and I spent a lot of time watching and
talking to those stars. I said good-bye
to the cat door, and to Sparky when she woke up. I explained where I was going and that I’d
see her there some day, but not for a long time, unless she did something
monumentally stupid. I told her not to
do anything like that because she’d have to take care of the daddy all by herself
when I was gone. The Mommy went to Mary’s
Land every week and the daddy would be lonely without me.
“For once, Sparky sat down next to me, not snuggly close but
close enough for a quiet chat. We’d
never talked to much, but this morning she was full of questions. She asked about my life and about the Peep, and
about what LT had been like when he was young.
I had to tell her that LT was a full-grown cat when I met him, but he’d
obviously been a lot spryer than when Sparky had come along. I talked myself hoarse, answering all her
questions. Finally she asked about Pottawatomie,
and I told her about our cross-country trip with David to the one in this
country, and then I told her about the one that Peep had told me about in my
dream just a few hours before. Sparky’s
eyes grew wide and the hair on her spine and tail began to puff out. The daddy was sitting there quietly petting
me as I’d been telling Sparky that last part, and he got a little alarmed when
he saw Sparky getting all puffy. He
probably thought she was angry because the Daddy was loving me and ignoring her,
so he picked her up and carried her into the kitchen. I called out to her not to be scared when it
was her time to go, and that I hoped she’d have a good long life. I began to doze off and I heard the daddy put
Sparky out the back door as I fell asleep.
I felt him sit next to me on the sofa and begin softly stroking my head,
back and side. He’s such a good daddy.
“After that it’s all a bit fuzzy. I kind of remember the Mommy talking to me
and loving me and then being picked up and taken for a ride in the car. Then I smelled the smell that’s only found in
Tibet, and wondered if that was where the door to Pottawatomie was. The daddy and the Mommy gave me more loves
and I dozed off. When I woke up I was
here and nothing hurt, so I knew I must have come to Pottawatomie. Can we go see my friends now? I’m sad because I know the Mommy and the
daddy must be sad, but I’m so happy to feel all strong and energetic, and I
want to run and find my friends. Then we’ll
all run and see what else we can find.
There’s got to be all sorts of new and different things to find
here. Please, may we go?”
Gaia shook her head and said that of course they could go,
and this arrival was definitely one for the books, whatever books they might
have been. When Rudy looked ready to spring
into a dead run, Gaia smiled and said, “Well, at least there’s one thing you
didn’t already know. You don’t have to
run to get there. Turn around.”
Rudy turned around and saw just in front of her an open
doorway in the middle of the field. No
frame that she could see and no door.
Just land on the other side that looked just like home in New
Jersey. Grassy, but with a lot of sand
in the dirt. A supine prickly pear
cactus lying on its side off to the left of the doorway. And then, running towards the doorway she saw
her friends. Rudy cried with joy, “I’m
coming, and then quickly turned to Gaia and said, thank you so much for your
help, but I’ve got to go now. Oh, my.” And off she ran through the doorway where she
could see the Peep, LT and the Grey horse, pawing at the grass underneath his
hoof in anticipation.
Godspeed Miss Rudy-Toots.
The Mommy, the Daddy and the Yarn Lady will miss you, but we know we’ll
see you again someday.
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