The Stray that stayed

As Willow marched down the pavement battling with the stereotypical statements of the society about her disability, she came across an eerie looking cat with scruffy and filthy fur. As she edged a shade closer to it, an ear-splitting voice raised behind her. “You coming home or starving to death with this hideous cat?”, said the voice which turned to be of her depraved brother, Will, whom she detested beyond measure.

The root of all her agony was Will since he deemed that her disability shaped her into this pretentious person who always endeavor to acquire empathy from others. It is pretty vivid that Will’s misconception led to a strain in their relationship. Hence, witnessing his malignant sight when she was trying to escape the cruel reality by putting her heads in the clouds, must’ve made her blood boil.

He approached her as she was cowering in fear head to toe. He went ballistic on her for sneaking out of the house which caused him to be chastised by mom. “You seriously have no idea how much anguish I have to go through just because of nuisance, do you?”.

Willow’s eyes welled up with tears as Will firmly gripped her hand and stormed out of there. As they were walking home, Will spotted that same cat following them home which drove him enraged. He failed to pull himself together and kicked the cat as far as possible which made Willow ashamed of her vile brother. “You filthy creatures disgust me”, shouted Will.

She clamped down on her throat with a desperate attempt of not bawling her eyes out as tears built a fortress in her eyes.

The taste of sheer detests burned in his throat when they arrived home and their mom swept Willow in her arms acting like Will didn’t exist. “I am so relieved that you are okay, honey”, said their mom as she tried catching her breath while bawling.

Moreover, he always felt like an outcast in his own family as his parents were always tied up to their necks with loads of work but spared the bare minimum of time only for Willow since they believed that extra attention was a fundamental requirement for people with ASD (autism spectrum disorder). However, he got impervious to this neglect overtime but still held a grudge towards Willow which made him sabotage her every time.

On the other hand, Willow was drowning in deep thoughts centered around that stray cat and astonishingly, she was able to carve out a vivid portrait of it in her imagination and couldn’t get that out of her head for the rest of the day. She reminisced the naive face of the cat which drained of sheer exhaustion that made her heart sank and they could’ve gotten along pretty good if it weren’t for that nefarious Will. “I feel like that our parents deem that bastard as their greatest erroneous ever”, thought Willow.

Soon after, she heard a faint sound which sounded like it came from a cat but it had a wave of fatigue washed over it. As a light breeze swayed across the room, it brushed up her eyelashes and she glanced up just to get a glimpse of that stray cat struggling to enter through the window. She thought that the cat returned just to wreck vengeance on her malicious brother for his derogatory act towards it.

However, she still went forward and opened the window for it and no sooner had the window been opened than it wrapped its minute paws around her providing her with a source of solace. She was relieved to see that her brother’s malice towards it didn’t lead to any detrimental consequences for it didn’t sustain any critical injuries but somehow way more beefed up than before. “How on earth are you so pumped up even after he hit so vigorously?”, enquired Willow.

Its pretty evident that the cat didn’t reply back. Its gesture indicated that it wanted Willow to follow it to a remote area but when this dawned on her, she wasn’t at consensus about following it. Still, they had a splendid time together trying out all sorts of terrific stuffs and Willow could finally take the lid off of her arduous life without being pitied or looked down upon. Spending such a gleeful time with cat resulted her overcoming the feeling of distraught which haunted her all this time.

All of a sudden, Will barged into the room stating that he heard some sort of noise which has been pestering him for a long time. “Can you keep it down while I am trying to get some work done?”, snapped Will.

As soon as his eyes caught the sight of the cat, a ray of stun streamed down his body as he froze, in lost for words. “What is that thing doing lurking around here?”, said Will while quivering.

He got himself together, trying to overcome the astonishment which caught him off guard and charged at the stray cat as if it were his lifelong arch nemeses which led to a brawl between them. “I won’t spare you, you gnawing animal”.

“Will, back off before hut severely maim the stray cat!”, said Willow. However, he seemed to brush off her words with a mere shrug and a gesture of hands through the uncanny window and continued to rip the skin of the cat while it fought back.

Willow was mortified at this gruesome scuffle between them which resulted in her blacking out that also petered out their combat. The stray cat scrammed out of their as Will brushed off his daze and took her under his wings.

After she recuperated, Will sedately enquired her about the cat in a concerned tone. “It left me aghast when it suddenly appeared in my window with a message it wished to convey. Its gesture made me deduce that it wanted me to follow it somewhere which left me quite perplexed”, delineated Willow.

The cat did not appear for the next few months which caused her to end up in jeopardy with her mental status. “I wonder if the enigmatic cat is in glee or utter distress?”, wondered Willow in her head. Looks like Will was able to grasp the insight of her uncanny behavior as he summed it up to be some kind of emotional attachment between her and the cat that assisted her to escape this grotesque reality and just be one with the animals who can’t judge her for being somewhat different.

Even though they had known each other for a quite a short period of time, the interaction she created between her and the cat in her head with fake scenarios, kept her from withering into nothingness. “I guess animals just adore you unconditionally without being bothered by your disabilities or races unlike humans which shapes them into a way stauncher buddies”, realized Will.

An instant sign of regret drained down his face as he felt like he had messed up big time with the cat. Long story short, Willow had a better brother to be her pal and they both expected the cat to come around since they didn’t wish to severe ties with it so quickly.