Retirement Cabin

He is alone in his cabin and finds the company quite pleasant. He can hear a faint morning wind blow through the trees from the half-open window in the kitchen. His iron skillet lets off crackling noises as it cools from his breakfast preparations. He picks up the last bacon crumb from his plate and savors it. Something about the last few bits of bacon after a good breakfast always makes him feel content.

He pushes his plate away and takes another sip of his steaming cup of coffee. He always has it just a bit sweet and with cream. It has cooled down to just under scorching and he enjoys the heat and slightly bitter taste as it settles down into his stomach.

Nothing much to do today, and he is quite pleased with that. His headache from yesterday is gone. He thinks it might have been from reading in the low light with his worsening eyesight.

There is no newspaper to read, no email to check. No mail to sort, no bills to pay. Don has been living in his retirement cabin for six months now since his wife passed. He misses her. But since he can’t be with her, he is more than happy to just be by himself. After she passed, he sold their retirement condo and bought a place in northern New Mexico to live out his days. His place is a small one-bedroom cabin on a fair amount of land.  It is an older place, but he made sure the structure was sound, the roof would last, and had taken the time to modernize the utilities.

There are a few neighbors, maybe a mile or so away, but generally people up here keep to themselves. Either running away from something or running to the wilderness. Don figures those two are about the same. He just wants some peace. No more rat race. No more bills. No more responsibilities. Just peace.

He finishes his coffee and proceeds to wash up the breakfast dishes. After drying the dishes and putting them neatly away, he checks his house’s status panel. It is on a side counter in the kitchen. In older times there might have been a telephone there. His panel indicates the well is working, the water holding tank is nearly full, his batteries are topped off, and the solar array is doing its job. Same as yesterday and the day before.

He refills his coffee cup and walks out onto his covered porch to enjoy the morning. It is late summer. A bit cool in the morning then a bit hot in the afternoon. He eases into his wooden porch chair. He watches the trees sway in the wind. Birds twitter as they fly back and forth. He has seen deer and elk from his chair, but none are out today. The morning sun shines down on the forest around him while he proceeds to enjoy his coffee and admire God’s handiwork.

#

Remus picks up the smell of the old man on the morning breeze. It is coming from the abandoned cabin to his west. He wondered if anyone new would move in. He had been living with an old woman at a nearby cabin for about five years until she passed.  He has wandered the forest since then. The forest holds an abundance of mice and small birds and he can eat his fill.

Remus can sense that winter is approaching. He can survive the winter, but hunting will be hard. He is getting older and can’t pounce quite as fast or run as far as he used to. His joints have started aching each morning, and his vision does not seem to be quite what it used to be. He heads toward the cabin with the old man’s smell.

He walks stealthily through the forest, taking his time. As with all cats, he does his best to be quiet. He had a sense of when prey is near and when he might be the prey. 

He reaches the clearing with the cabin and settles down to watch. Sure enough, an old man is sitting on the porch. He is drinking something that smells awful and is humming to himself. Remus watches. He is very good at watching.

#

Don finishes his coffee and heads back into the cabin. A quick rinse of the cup and he places it on the drying rack. Usually, he passes his days whittling or reading. Sure, there are small chores to do, but he just takes those in stride as needed. His arthritis is making his hands a bit stiff, so he decides to read for a spell. He is slowly working his way through One Hundred Years of Solitude. He is halfway through and can already see the real world reflected in fiction. People keep repeating the same stories in their lives. The book is at times entertaining and at times hard to get through. He has nothing but time now, so he forges ahead to the next chapter.

The crick in his neck wakes him up. He must have fallen asleep while reading again. That never happened when he was younger, but he feels he has earned the privilege to nap whenever he wants to. Luckily the book is still on his lap, with the bookmark in place. He hates it when he has to try to find his place in the book again. He puts the book on his side table and stands up to stretch.

He checks email and other messages. Nothing: perfect.

A large book on forest trees and plant species is beside the door, he grabs it. It has become a hobby to try to name all the plants he can see from his porch. He grabs a bag too, maybe he’ll find some plants to spice up his dinner. He heads out from the cabin.

#

After a few hours, the man comes out of the cabin. He wanders slowly away from the cabin, bending down and looking at the ground every so often. What a curious way to walk. Humans are strange. The human keeps walking away from the cabin and heads into the forest.

After the sounds and smell of the man have dissipated, Remus twitches his tail slightly and yawns. In a blur, he springs up from his crouch and sprints onto the cabin’s porch. On the porch, he stops suddenly and looks around, tail twitching. Seeing nothing moving, he jumps up on the man’s chair and curls up. To an observer, it looks like Remus is fast asleep, but he is just listening and smelling. His eyes are closed but he is fully alert. 

#

What a joy! Don has run across a half dozen lobster mushrooms on his walk. He stashes those in his bag. He also runs across some late-season wild onions and adds those to his bounty. A little tired from the walk, he finishes his plant survey and heads to the back of the cabin where his solar array is. He likes to visually inspect the panels each day to ensure they are clean. As he leans over to get a closer look at them, his vision blurs a bit and he is hit with a wave of dizziness.  He grabs hold of the panels to steady himself.  Must be too hot for me today, he thinks. He blinks a few times and his vision comes back.  He shakes his head a bit to clear it. Maybe he is just hungry and should fix himself some lunch. He walks carefully to his front porch. As he climbs the porch steps, he sees something in his porch chair. Is that a cat?

The cat opens its eyes, raises its head, and looks at him with its green-slitted eyes.

Don quickly looks away and avoids returning the look as he proceeds into the cabin, shutting the door loudly behind him. Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away. He is not interested in a pet. Even if he was, he would get a dog. Probably just a feral cat, I hope it doesn’t have rabies or fleas or anything. He may have to sanitize his porch chair before he sits on it.

He reheats some chili for lunch and cuts off a slice of cornbread to go with it. He daydreams as he eats. The older he gets, the more it seems like he spends time inside his head. Funny how memories of his teens and early years with his wife are so vivid, and last week just kind of fades away to a large extent.

As he finishes his chili, he feels like someone is watching him. He looks up and sees the cat looking in at him from the ledge outside the front window. The cat meows at him through the window. He doesn’t want a cat, but geez, maybe the darn thing is hungry. Wouldn’t want to be hungry and alone in the woods myself, he thinks.

Don gets some cream out of the fridge and pours it into a small bowl. He places it outside the front door and steps back to watch. “Here you go kitty.”

Remus watches as the man puts the cream down. That is a good human, he thinks; catering to me just like he should. He walks slowly over to the cream, taking his time. He isn’t thirsty or hungry, but he knows that it makes humans feel better if you accept what they give you – it makes them feel useful.   He takes a few licks while watching the human. The taste hits his tongue. Wow, this is good! Better than the low-fat milk the old lady used to give him. He concentrates fully on the bowl and the cream is gone in no time.

Remus trots into the house and starts rubbing his body around the man’s ankles while he purrs. He knows that rubbing up against humans calms them down and makes them feel better. The human smell is much stronger in the house. 

Don looks down at the cat. Darn!  Well, it looks healthy enough he thinks. Should have left the door closed. He sighs and heads into his living room, his new cat following him.

#

That night, Don prepares his dinner and opens up some canned tuna for the cat. “What am I going to call you?” he asks. The cat looks up at him with its green eyes but doesn’t say anything.

“That was rhetorical, you don’t have to answer,” Don adds. He ponders for a few minutes. “Garfield? Lucifer? Tom? None of those seem to fit you, hmmm. You came out of the woods, how about Simba?”

Remus looks up from the tuna. He doesn’t care what he is called. A name is about as useful to a cat as a unicycle.

“Simba it is! Welcome to my domain, Simba.”

Remus finishes the tuna and walks into the living room. The couch looks like the perfect place for a nap. He curls up and tries to ignore the noise the human is making in the kitchen as he cleans up after dinner.

Don finishes the dishes and then retires to the living room for the evening. He sits in his recliner reading, occasionally glancing over at his new housemate. After reading for a bit, his headache starts to come on again. He decides to take some aspirin and head off to bed. “Simba, are you an inside cat or an outside cat?” he asks.

Remus stretches and looks at the human. It is getting late, so he better teach the human his nightly routine. He jumps down off the couch and walks to the front door. He stands by it and lets out a loud meow.

Don laughs, “I guess you are an outside cat. OK, here you go.” He opens the door and lets Simba out. The cat heads out of the door into the night. “Hmm, maybe he is just a visitor,” Don says quietly to himself. He heads to the bathroom to take care of his nightly ablutions.

He sits on the side of his bed and is about to lie down when he hears a loud Meow and scratching coming from the front door. He sighs and gets back up. He shuffles to the front door and hears some more scratching. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Don opens the door and lets the cat back into the house. “OK, you are an indoor/outdoor cat.” He calls out as the cat heads around him and into his bedroom. Don sighs as he walks back to his bedroom. The cat is on his bed and cleaning itself. “You aren’t a snorer, are you Simba?” He asks. He waits a bit for an answer, but the cat is clearly ignoring him. “You are right, that was rhetorical too.”

Don settles into bed, the cat curled up on the comforter by his feet. He turns off the lamp by his bedside and slowly drifts off to sleep.

#

Remus hears the human’s breathing change halfway through the night. He crawls slowly up onto the man’s chest to watch him. The human’s smell is very strong now. It is almost time.

An hour later, the man’s breathing slows and then stops. 

Remus creeps forward so he is looking down directly at the human’s mouth. The man’s mouth opens and he emits a slight exhale as the spirit leaves his body. Remus breathes the man’s spirit in deeply. 

Remus stands and stretches out with new vigor. He feels much friskier now! He hops easily down from the bed. Each spirit he captures makes him feel five years younger, he thinks. Remus bounds out of the half-open kitchen and back into the forest.   

Nine lives indeed, he thinks. He has lived with dozens of dying people and is well past 100 years now. He twitches his tail and smells something on the wind that might be his next meal.