It is a wonderfully sun-filled late afternoon. I feel spring is here and summer is already on its way, on the back of a mild winter. The bougainvillea in our garden did not stop flowering all through autumn and winter and today I spotted more flowers on this massive wall climbing plant. As I think of summer, I am reminded of a day many summers ago, when we first moved into our current home. With a new garden to re-do and fill with colour, I set about spending most of my days digging, weeding, planting, watering, hours at the garden centres, carrying heavy soil bags from the boot of the car to the bottom of our garden…Back then when my husband was always on a plane. I also remember the one afternoon I stood in my garden and watched a grey cat (not ours) spring out of nowhere onto a helpless little sparrow, who was innocently feeding on some seeds I had left on the ground.
That day, the grey cat knew I was watching, or so I think. It held the sparrow in its mouth and looked at me, in triumph, as I looked back at in horror. Trembling, I started to cry while the cat victoriously marched through my garden, sparrow held in place, jumped over the fence and into a neighbouring garden. Afterwards I told one of my friends all about the horror I had witnessed. She reassured me that it was just nature taking its course…cats are supposed to eat birds, the whole eco system thing, blah blah blah. The rational part of my brain knew she was right. The other part, let’s not call it irrational for a moment, said to my friend, inaudibly, ‘But you don’t know what this cat is like. It is paying me back.’
Now, for those of you who know me really well, having invited me to your home and sat in bewilderment, perhaps, following a conversation that played out somewhat like this: “Me: Do you have cats at home? You: Yes. Me: Umm…I cannot come, unless the cats are not there…I’m scared of cats”, you know what I mean. I am absolutely petrified of cats. No use asking me what it is about cats that makes me feel that way. I just do…feel that way.
I see a cat and it sees me. We have a conversation.
It (almost always a she, for I have no clue how to differentiate between a male and female cat because I have never been brave enough to get close enough to tell the difference) says to me “Ahhh, I have got you cornered you now. Everyone around here loves me; they love rubbing my belly when I roll on my back, they think I am cute…and then they look at you – the weird one – because you are shit scared of me.”
I retort “Well, I have no desire to rub your belly or any part of you. Get out of my garden.”
It/She does not budge. Sits on the grass and continues to demonise me. It/She knows I am scared, petrified…and seems to be enjoying every moment of it. A lick of its/her fur, another look at me, then looks away at my birds, eyes back on me as if to say “I’m gonna get your birds today…and you some day”. Smirk on its/her face. Eventually, I leave the cat to its musings and retreat inside my house. I toss and turn in bed for nights on end. I have cat nightmares – they jump on my bed, rub themselves against my legs…Oh God! I wake up screaming, panting, unable to sleep anymore. The new home experience is not so nice anymore.
So, one day, after a prolonged cat and mouse game (me the mouse obviously), I set out on a mission. I buy some water squirters from the 2-dollar shop. At the garden centre, I buy cat alarms. I am ashamed to say that I was reduced to using a ‘weapon’ to get this predator out of my garden. This was after having consulted with a few cat owners, who said they did not mind their cat being ‘sprayed with water if it annoys you’. “Sprayed, not gunned” my conscience yells. “Hush”, I yell back in return, “it is after all only water, not bullets…kids squirt each other with it all the time!”
Equipped with my ’deterrents’, I triumphantly go about setting up the alarms all afternoon. The alarm system is designed to scare cats away with a high pitched sound that only cats can hear, and hopefully chase them away. It cannot come and spoil the freshly dug up soil then. Three alarms for now. Check. Water squirters, filled with water, check. I sleep easy that night.
Next day I wait in the garden. Keeping busy (to the ordinary eye) with more soil digging, but really waiting for my nemesis to show up. So I can have it out with it/her. Planting, digging, planting, waiting…the grey cat is about, I can feel it in my bones. All day I wait. It does not come. Of course, I have to go to work at some point and I do. I check on the garden every afternoon. No signs of the cat. Until day five. It/She appears out of nowhere, making me jump out of my skin. But I play it cool this time. I do not stand frozen on the spot. I look at it/her, it/she looks at me. I say, “I don’t care about you being here, do what you like.” I walk away. It looks almost angry at my lack of fearful response. Ha! I have the upper hand now, I think. I walk quietly to the garage to retrieve a water squirter. Hiding it behind my back, I walk back in the garden. It/she is still there, waiting to paralyse me with fear. A swish of its tail…sends shivers down my spine. We lock eyes. I cannot feel my legs. Hold your ground, I say to myself. Be brave.
I slowly raise the squirter and aim at the cat. I miss the target, not just miss, but miss by a long shot. But it does something to the cat. It knows this weapon. It can tell I am on a war path. It runs for its life. Meanwhile, I stand there shaking to my core. I have never used a ‘weapon’ of any sort. And I think my conscience gave a huge sigh of relief when I missed my target.
The cat did not forget the encounter though. Oh no, you bet it did not. It came back, a week later. It hid under the deck and waited until I fed the birds. It waited until I was right near the edge of the deck under which it was hiding. And then it jumped on the innocent sparrow and crushed the poor bird in its mouth, simultaneously crushing my recently found but shaky confidence in the fight against fear (of cats). Oh, it got me. And it got me well. Payback for an off-target water squirter attempt, but payback, nonetheless.
I am not a cruel, animal hurting person by the way. I have fed and watered some neighbours’ cats (cats which I have got accustomed to), from a distance of course. But the other cats in our neighbourhood (minus the neighbours’ ones) still scare me to death and I have not done any harm to any of them. I sit uneasily at anyone’s home where a cat is on the prowl. I jump when it approaches me and in doing so accidentally break any dishes, cups or glasses that happen to be in the way. Or when the cat is a good distance away but within sight, I pretend I am listening to the conversations around me, when all the time I am having other conversations in my head. I am sweating profusely. Heart throbbing. Mind in a panicked state, a nonstop buzz…conjuring up pictures over and over again of the animal pouncing on me, scratching my skin, my eyes, biting me, rubbing itself all over me. Shivers down my spine do not adequately describe my phobia, the paranoia. Somehow all the cats who come in contact with me can look inside my soul and know how I am feeling, and I do believe they love taunting me. I know a cat cannot kill me. I am not a little sparrow that a cat can hold in its mouth and squash to its death. I am not even scared of death by a cat. It is just…a phobia. An irrational (there, I admit it!) fear.
“Oh Viks, the poor thing is more scared of you than you are of it”. True. Maybe. But when I look at the cat and it looks back at me, we have a different conversation altogether, just the two of us. I remain the mouse.