A Short Story by Cally in loving memory of

    S U N N Y

He was there again.  The cold drizzling rain was beginning to fill the old aluminum pie plate on the verandah and the bits of food looked soggy and unappealing.  I shifted my groceries to my left hand and with my right took hold of the edge of the pie plate intending to pull it to a safer home closer to the edge of the apartment building.  Ouch!  He bit my hand.

"Don't you know you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you?"  I asked.  The straggly orange tabby responded with a surly growl.  I made one more attempt to move the plate.  This time the equally determined tabby dug in.  A pearly white horizontal clamp locked the now overflowing pie plate firmly in its grip.  We played Tug-o-war but it was impossible

for  me to win.  My competition had hunger on his side and his gnawing need made him the stronger opponent.  Thoroughly frustrated I declared him the winner but I knew that his easy win was his inevitable loss.  He had clearly staked his claim.  The plate was in his territory and he was not about to relinquish it.

"You are not a cat.  You are a mule!" I growled at him.  "Don't you know I am just trying to help you?"

He glared.

"You think I'm trying to steal your food?"  I asked.  I was feeling cold; indecisive.  I looked at the soggy mess in the plate.  I looked at the soaked, skinny cat and realized that he was protecting what could very  well be his last supper.

Mimicking the cat, I began to shiver.  The wind had picked up, changed direction and now the verandah floor was being washed.  The bits of food were floating dangerously close to the rim of the plate threatening to slippery slide onto the floor.  "All right, eat your sodden soup!  I don't have time for this nonsense!" I spat, as much concerned now with my own health as I was with that of the stubborn stranger.

I turned my back on him, unlocked the lobby door.  I resisted the temptation to look back.  No, I don't want him, I reminded myself again.  I don't want him.  I don't need this.

Finally inside my warm apartment I put the kettle on for coffee and proceeded to put the groceries away.  I couldn't afford the time I had wasted with the ungrateful creature.  My friend, Brenda, would be here any minute.

The buzzer, an abrupt intruder, caused my conflicting emotions to scatter.  Opening my apartment door I greeted my friend, "Hi, Brenda, you are just in time for coffee."

We sat on the couch in the living-room.  Brenda chatted away.  I was oblivious to her words.  Why doesn't he stop it?  Why doesn't he go somewhere else, I muttered under my breath.

"What?" Brenda asked.

"Oh, nothing, Brenda," I responded.  "It's that damn cat.  Can't you hear him?"

Brenda listened.  "I don't hear anything," she answered.

"You don't hear him crying?" I asked, surprised.

"I don't hear who crying?" Brenda demanded.

I got up from the couch, walked over to the window and stared through the now pouring rain.  "I can't stand it anymore," I shouted in angry surrender.

"Audrey, what is the matter with you?" my friend insisted.  No answer.  Then "I'll be right back, Brenda."

Resolutely I left the apartment, marched down the stairs, opened the lobby door and snarled, "All right.  I don't want you but it looks like I've got you.  Come on in, you dumb cat, before you drown!"

I fastened my hands around the scrawny, wet body holding it well out from my own and carried it in this fashion back to my apartment.  "God help me, Brenda," I muttered upon my return, "I know there is a reason for everything but I'm darned if I know why I have kidnapped this dripping derelict into my life.  I don't want him.  He is going to make my life miserable."

"Then why are you bringing him in?" my friend sensibly asked.

"I have to," I answered.  "I don't want to but I have to.  Don't ask me why.  I don't know why.  Ouch!"  He had bitten me again.  I carried the outraged outcast down the hallway, retrieved a towel from the bathroom rack and tried to wrap the clawing, scratching, wild cat in its warmth. "Ouch!  Ouch!  Stop it!  That hurts!" I shouted.

I dropped the crabby cat into the bathtub.  "Stay there until I decide what I am going to do with you," I ordered.  "Or at least until you dry out," I grumbled.

I returned to the living-room.  "Audrey, you're bleeding!"  Brenda said in alarm.  "Oh, my god," I replied and immediately returned to the bathroom in search of the Polysporin and bandaids.

As I cleaned and bandaged my many small wounds, I looked into the bathtub at the now peaceful, sleeping creature.  For the first time I noticed how pretty his face was; how lovely his soft orange coat.  I sighed.  "Poor baby," I murmured leaning over to pet the pathetic critter.  "Ouch!  Ouch!" I shouted, turning the water back on, sticking my hand under the faucet to stop the fresh flow of blood.  He growled again as if to say, it's bad enough you won't let a guy eat; you can't let him sleep?

"Have it your way!" I snarled back.

Again back in the living-room, Brenda asked, "Are you going to keep him?"

"Yes," I replied but my statement sounded like a question even to my own ears.  "This is Sunday so I will name him Sunday, the day of rest.  Hopefully once he is rested, fed and cared for a little he will settle down and not be too much of a hassle."

"You are allergic to cats, aren't you, Audrey?"

"Yes.  God knows why I brought him home because I don't.  There is a lesson in this somewhere.  I only wish I knew what it was."

Two weeks later the feud was turning into an all-out war.  I sought advice from friends and followed it.  "Get him neutered," they all said.  "He'll settle down."  I did.  He didn't.

"Give him lots of love," they all advised.  I tried.  He'd bite some more.

Saying 'Sunday' turned into a chore.  It's a stupid name, I decided, and one morning shortened his name to Sunny.  "But don't think it's a reflection of your disposition," I informed him, as I brushed his now smooth, shiny hair.  "Ouch!" I shouted, throwing the brush back into the kitchen cupboard.  "What is the matter with you?  You know you like to be brushed.  Will you please stop biting me?"

"Growl, bite," he answered.

More time passed.  The arguments persisted.

One evening I was relaxing on the couch listening to Handal.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sunny approaching.  "What do you want?"  I asked.

He jumped up on to the couch and nuzzled his way on to my lap.  He proceeded to climb up on to my shoulder resting his front paws on my back.  Suddenly, "What are you doing?" I demanded.

Sunny had taken a tiny piece of my robe into his mouth and was noisily sucking the cloth.  As he sucked he softly prodded my shoulder with his feet, first one paw then the other.  I was almost moved to tears.  "Poor baby," I crooned, stroking his back.  "You are in great need of nurturing, aren't you?"

He purred.   He actually purred.

I was unexplainably deeply moved.  I held him as though he were a newborn babe and whispered to him of love, of sharing, of caring.  He rubbed his little face against my own.  So soft.  So strange.

Sunny was meeting a need in me that I had long been denying existed within me.  He was nurturing me.  At once I understood why this crabby critter was a part of my life.  We had much in common.

"It isn't going to happen overnight, old man," I told him, "but maybe in time you and I will learn to stop biting.  Maybe we can teach each other that the time is coming when it won't be necessary.  I love you, Sunny."  He nuzzled my face.  I smiled.

A year later I would repeat to every guest that entered my home.  "This is Sunny.  He's a good guy but be careful.  He bites."

But with each guest that arrived I gave him a chance to show his passive progression.  It varied from guest to guest.  Sometimes he was allowed to stay in the living-room for two minutes.  Sometimes he was allowed to remain for an hour.  Always at some point I would hear my guest say, "Ouch!" at which time I would lovingly or angrily, depending upon my own mood, pick him up, carry him at arm's length to the spare bedroom; giving him time to be alone, to get in touch with himself, to think about the error of his ways.

"Everyone needs a room of one's own," I would inform my guests.  "I always knew this but Sunny has confirmed it for me.  He has taught me a lot.  He is a good guy but he bites.  I bite too sometimes but Sunny is teaching me that it really isn't necessary.  I find that I am biting less and accepting more readily the challenges of life."

Alone with him I would sometimes speak softly to him saying, "There really is a purpose in all things but I guess, just like you, I am learning this the hard  way.  I love you, Sunny."

Growl!    Bite! 

Ouch!

Note:  Sunny and I spent nearly 10 most interesting years together.  He died peacefully two years ago.  He lives in my loving memories and he is alive in my heart.  He never stopped biting, bless his heart.  I miss him.

Never drive faster than your Guardian Angel can fly.

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