1st Level Ranger

One of the things newcomers to U.S. Embassy Islamabad notice right away is the cats.  Cats here, cats there, cats everywhere, especially if there is food on offer.  Despite the "Please Do NOT Feed the Cats" signs posted, cat lovers set out food and water for them.

What the cats think of this is hard to say, although the little black-and-white number who hangs out around our office appears to have an agreement with five-to-seven people, each of which is the poor thing's sole provider of food and water, at different times of day.  These kind individuals never seem to notice that black-and-white keeps getting bigger.

For a cat lover like me, the constant presence of kittehs made me miss my two even more.  By the time a classified ad advertising two kittens for adoption appeared in our post dispatch, I had already settled on adopting the next kitty that came along.  Or two.


One, the girl, was smoky grey with black stripes.  A very shy scaredy-cat, prone to hiding very effectively and staying in the shadows, I called her Rogue.  The other, her brother, is a pale gold with deep orange stripes, changing to cheetah spots just beyond the haunches.  A very bold cat, prone to pouncing into your lap and catching fish-shaped toys in mid-leap, I called him Ranger.

At first, everything went well.  But then everything seemed to fall apart at once.  Both Rogue and Ranger developed a very, very smelly skin condition.  Both had some sort of infection in their mouths.  Rogue was so scared of me that my very presence in the room would cause her to tremble uncontrollably.  After bathing Ranger in the sink with a special shampoo--a bath in which Ranger was very brave and stoic--I tried to corral Rogue, without success.

At this point, her fear of me increased to the point where me walking towards her would cause her bowels to loosen.  As the messes piled up, she grew more and more fearful.  At a loss, and seeing the cat in fear all the time, I decided to make her an outdoor cat.  After all, she had lived outdoors to date, I'm on a high-walled compound, she can have everything she needs.

At first, this went well as well.  But then Ranger began *howling*.  Not crying, not the sad mournful howl, but the full-throated howl of mourning that cat lovers everywhere dread.  I said to myself, this will pass.

But it didn't pass.  It went on.  For days.

The only solution was to move Ranger out of the house to join Rogue.  Ranger was so loving, though, that this was very difficult for me.  He was sleeping beside me every night and once every two hours he appears out of nowhere to demand some lovin', with his purr engine turned on to full.  Yet, he was so forlorn.

I would see them pass by my windows in a blur, reasonably happy, reasonably healthy, well fed.  It was not what I had been looking for, but at least they were being taken care of.

(3 Weeks Later....)

It was a dark and stormy night.  The rain poured down as it can only in South Asia.  Lightning flashed every 2 minutes, to be followed by the hammer stroke of Thor, right above my head.  (Okay, maybe it was Allah). Distant at first, faint, but regular, a strange sound intruded into my senses amongst the storm noises.  

What is that?  I focused on it as strongly as I could.

In an instant, I recognized it:  Ranger's howl, in the distance!

I whipped out of bed like a flash and threw on my trusty raincoat.  In the wind and rain, it wasn't clear where it was coming from, but he was somewhere nearby.  Then, in a lull in the storm, I realized it was coming from above me.  The roof!

I ran back upstairs and out to my balcony.  Rain was falling in sheets off the tile roof and on to the flat concrete floor, splashing everywhere.  The howl was right above me, loud now.

I looked up and saw Ranger's little wet head hanging over the roof in a depression caused by a partially deteriorated tile.  

"There you are!," I yelled.  "Hold on, I'll get you!"

I reached my arm up as far as it could go, but it remained a good foot from his now-constantly howling face.  I ran over to the other side of the balcony and grabbed a long steel frame table.  Even with the additional height, I still could not reach him.  I was so close, no more than 2 inches away.  As I reached to him to my utmost, Ranger put his right paw down to reach my hand.  We almost touched, but not quite.  I jumped off the table and pushed it out of the way.

"What, what, what, what, what, what can I use?," I muttered aloud to myself.  "I know!"

I rushed back inside and went to my room, where I found his favorite chair, the one he liked best for cat naps.  I grabbed it, went back out to the balcony, kicked the table back over, turned the chair around so that the cushion was facing the roofline, and lifted it up over my head until it was flush with the roof. 

Ranger walked across and crouched down into a low position on the chair cushion.  I slowly lowered the chair and set it on the balcony floor.  Ranger leapt off the chair and onto the wet concrete.

“There you go, are you alright, buddy?” I asked.

Ranger turned around, looked up at me and sprang right at my chest.  I caught him, held him tight and powered through the thick rain back into my living room. 

I dried him in a towel and gave him some wet food for dinner.  That night, and almost every night since, he has slept in my bed, under the blankets.  One night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I noticed he was looking at me, his little head the only part of him not under the covers.  As I closed my eyes, I could have sworn I heard a little voice saying “I’m not ever going out there again…..”

Smart kitty.