Miss Purdy Sees

Though her coat was black, Miss Purdy was predominantly Siamese. When she stretched in the patch of early morning sun, her body was a long, sleek, torpedo, her glossy fur shone like rich satin. Miss Purdy was taking it a bit easy, catering to the needs of eight three-week-old kittens was exhausting.

The kittens were safely sheltered in a box tucked into a closet. The closet was in an office high on one of the top floors of a building. Miss Purdy did not know exactly how tall the building was, but from the woman’s desk she could see nothing but sky, clouds, and the occasional thunderously roaring sky bus she reckoned were filled with humans going somewhere.

Miss Purdy was an office cat. She’d been a throw away kitten, tossed into an alley in the city far below. Carol the receptionist had been kind and patient. She’d brought treats and tuna and milk until the tenacious black cat learned to trust her. Now, in exchange for shelter and food, Miss Purdy rid the entire floor of vermin.

“Zzzpt-whrr.” It was the electronic lock on the office door. Carol came in, dropping her heavy lavender Gucci tote by her desk, kicked off her laceless white Keds, and squeezed her feet into the four inch pumps her boss seemed to have a fetish for. Todays were black patent. Her waist long dark hair pulled back into a sleek and bouncy pony-tail. She turned to Miss Purdy with luminous hazel-green eyes sparkling and rosy lips turned up with joy.

She said, “Well hello Miss Purdy. How are your babies doing today?”

Miss Purdy came to Carol, nuzzled against the woman’s shins, her whiskers tickling the smooth tanned calves. She purred lustily as Carol reached into her bag for The Daily Tin. Carol said, “Special treat today for a special lady…on a very special day.”

She showed the cat the can for a second. The label was pink with a fish on it. Carol pulled the tab and the cat who’d been focused on the picture of a fish on the label, was distracted by the woman’s fingernails. They were lacquered in black today, as slick as her own coat. But that was odd.

They were normally a color matching her outfit. And Carol was a woman of colorful dress- fuchsia paisleys on emerald fields, violet polka dots and teal pantaloons, animal prints and lemon yellow maxi-skirts. She must have had a closet for her scarves alone- floral patterns predominantly- lilacs, sunflowers, crimson roses, and abstract blooms in every hue under the sun. The cat had been drawn her because cats are colorblind- that is, they see color but are limited to yellows and blues, the rest are muted- and this woman who came every day to coax her from her shell of unbidden fortitude was a whirlwind of colors she’d never seen before. Curiosity had more to do with her resignation from loneliness than the rumbling in her small tummy, she’d wanted to know more of this gentle-on-the-outside-but-fierce-as-a-lion-on-the-inside human being. They had that cat gene in common. So, she came to live in the office.

Carol had caught the cat looking at her curiously one day, studying her from head to toe, much like the young children in Central Park did as she strolled with her frilly pink parasol. She’d laughed, the sound like fairy chimes, and said, “I know. I just can’t help it. Life’s just too short to ever be dull and boring.” She’d twirled for the cat, her long, silky purple skirt flowing and ebbing around her legs like iris petals in a stream. “I’ll tell you a secret my wee friend…I am from genuine gypsy blood. Oh yes, it’s true. But I suppose one could take one look at me and sort of guess…yes, indeed, my grandmother’s mother’s mother told fortunes and travelled in a caravan all over Europe.” The cat had listened intently, her focus only broken by the discordant buzz of the intercom on Carol’s desk.

Today her scarf was black and dotted with small white skulls. As Carol leaned over to place the bowl on the placemat by her desk, her long black sleeves billowed fluidly, and the cleansing scent of lemons and sage wafted delicately past Miss Purdy’s pink nose.

The fish was salmon, her favorite. She was humbled and purred with re-newed vigor. Her babies would eat well. Carol mixed the remaining fish with milk and got up to place a second bowl in the closet. Miss Purdy paused eating to stare at the woman, dressed entirely in black today, and a frown creased her forehead. Carol turned and went to her desk, she giggled at the cat and said, “Quit it. You look like Grumpy Cat. And no…no one’s died. I said this was a special day.” She looked to the gold Westclox on her tidy desk. “Oh! Look at the time. Five minutes to go.”

Carol rummaged in her big bag and came out with sunglasses the cat had never seen her wear before. These looked flimsy as a toy, like something a child might wear when dressing up as a robot. The small rectangular lenses looked like tin foil, the frames were cardboard. Carol pushed out her chair and turned the desk a quarter turn so it faced the large picture window. She kicked off her heels, sat on the desk cross-legged, and patted the desktop. Miss Purdy, ever the curious one, was way beyond that now, so she leapt gracefully up and said, “mew?” when Carol donned the funny glasses.

It seemed there was a storm coming, the atmosphere had shifted nearly imperceptibly. Because she was colorblind, she saw contrast most intensely and her sensitive eyes abhorred bright sunlight…so this subtle darkening should have been appealing…but it was not because there was not a single cloud in the sky. Scratch that- there was a cloud of sorts- from around the west side of the skyscraper a ginormous black cloud flew past the window. It swirled like ashes from the deepest pit of hell up and away, then back again straight at the window.

Miss Purdy howled, “meeeeeoooooooorrrrrrr.” And shivered, her fur stood on end like a halloween decoration. Carol stroked her back but continued to stare upwards. She appeared to be staring right at the sun and that scared Miss Purdy further. The cloud swerved before the window at the last second- it was a very large flock of starlings. At least a thousand of them, a sight she’d never seen before. It was wondrous and scary at the same time. “Meeeeooooooorrrrrr. Hssssssss.”

The cat’s ears unflattened from her head. From the wall to the left of them came a cacophony of squeaks and scrabbling that the woman appeared not to hear. The sky grew darker still. Cat and woman were mesmerized. The sky outside was…orangey like a pumpkin sunset.

Carol said, “here, look at this, it’s okay now.” She placed the weird glasses that weren’t glass over the cat’s eyes and for the first and only time in her life, she looked upon the sun. Then she understood that its rays were diminished by a sphere in front of it. She shuddered. The world was ending! Instinctively, she understood that the sun was life, all earth’s creatures instinctively knew that, even human beings. The world was dying. And Carol seemed pleased.

She shook her head and Carol took the glasses. She scrabbled ungracefully from the desk, disarraying the blotter and upended the cup of pens, and raced to the closet to her babies. They were hungry again but had no idea the world was ending and that was a good thing. So sad that their lives were so short. The scrabbling in the walls seemed to follow Miss Purdy like a curse. She knew they were the ghosts of all the mice and rats she’d slaughtered. She was angry at them for haunting her; she’d been compassionate to them as living creatures, and killed them swiftly, unlike others of her breed that toy and torture and… tenderize. She let the kittens wean and closed her eyes, glad for the darkness of the closet. She heard the woman muttering and whispering in a language she was not familiar with and assumed she was praying.

And then…all went silent. For an hour nothing. It had only been fifteen minutes, but cats are worse than children when it comes to perceiving time.

“It’s nearly over now kitty.”

Miss Purdy peeked out from the closet and saw that indeed it was light again, Carol turned around when the sky was brilliant azure once again. She got up, rummaged in her bag and came up with a handful of bright yellow and pink and green. “Ha! Now I can get out of my witch clothes and be myself again.” As she changed her clothes, Miss Purdy looked out in amazement at the heavenly world and the sky she’d never again take for granted. The vermin ghosts had left her in peace... perhaps the witch had sent them away. She wondered if she’d ever be able to kill again.

Carol said, “I’m sorry you were so frightened. That was a solar eclipse. They don’t happen very often. A person is lucky to witness even one in their entire life. I took advantage of this one. Big time. Ohhhh, the power…” She held her palms outwards to the sky and shivered then laughed like a loon.

Miss Purdy determined then and there that her savior was beyond eccentric. She. Was. Cray Cray. But she brought her and her babies chicken or fish every day. So, she would take each day as it came, as all cats do.

A knock sounded on the office door and then opened just as Carol was adjusting her colorful blouse. “Did you see it?” her boss asked excitedly.

“David. Yes,” she indicated to her desk and began putting it back to its perpendicular position to the window, she sat, donned her shoes, and said, “spectacular! Even Miss Purdy got to see it.”

David chuckled. “And how are the kittens doing?”

“Growing bigger every day. You picked one out yet?”

“The one with the Grumpy Cat face of course.”

“They say a pet looks like their owner.”

“Har har. That’s dogs,” He leaned towards her and placed a big white freckled hand on her knee.

“Suuuure it is,” she swiveled to look out the window, unplacing the godawful paw.

“Heh heh…well, back to the old grindstone,” he waggled a finger playfully.

She waggled one back and as the door closed, she grimaced. “Ugh. Pompous ass. You know he cheats on his wife with three sluts in financing?”

Miss purdy didn’t understand the words but did get the drift by her tone and hand movements. Carol went on as she did daily, “And do you know just the other day in the park a man ran past me and knocked an old woman down from his path…he was running with a lady’s handbag.”

Carol’s eyes shone with wetness as she continued. “I do my best to be…upbeat. But this city is truly cursed.”

Miss Purdy tried to console her with affectionate head nudges and purring, but the woman was quite crazed, her hands like claws in a ball in her lap. “The alleys are full of veterans. Men who served and came home after such horrors…and no one cares for them. The streets are full of lost souls.” She began weeping then. The cat had seen this over the last four months she’d been living in the building. “That alley I found you in…I visited it often. You didn’t know that…or perhaps you did. There were homeless in there. I brought them food on my lunch hours…until one day.”

She sobbed and covered her eyes. Her head rose up and she sucked snot back into her head. “I went and they were gone. I went to the dumpsters because there was a scurrying of rats like never before. They were feasting. I saw. But I fixed them. I fixed them all, you’ll see.”

Miss Purdy was rapt and listening and trying to understand. She could to a certain extent by facial and body motions and knew this woman she loved was distraught beyond repair. Carol continued, “The rats were feasting on a baby. A girl child I saw. Dumped into the garbage.”

The cat said, “mew.”

Carol looked down and said, “I’m sorry to burden you such. But that’s what friends are for, eh?”

***

One year later…

By 8:30 am, the east facing offices high in the tower were awashed in ebullient light. Carol’s office was pleasantly warm, she entered and turned on her Dyson fan and the warm air swirled around pleasingly. Miss Purdys’ offspring patrolled throughout the building, every floor welcomed the office cats after rumors of level 90 being rodent free circulated. Plus, the kitties were just so darn cute.

Miss Purdy heard the clickety clicks of Carols fingers as they flew over the keyboard on her desk. Miss Purdy also detected a droning sound…like a big bumble bee but definitely getting closer. Alarm bells rang in the cat’s head, but she didn’t know why. She had heard similar noise, and had watched, mesmerized, as the winged buses flew high over head. Carol always got a kick out of the cat watching the airplanes, she was like a little kid watching Saturday morning cartoons.

This morning the droning was a malevolent sound. Miss Purdy sat on the desk and searched the sky for the thing, whiskers tensed and quivering, the tip of her tail twitching. Carol watched the cat though today she was not smiling. She said softly, “I love you Miss Purdy.”

The plane came into view, a speck on the cloudless blue backdrop at first, then growing in size quite rapidly. It swooped down from the sky and flew alarmingly low over New York City. Alarm bells went off in Mis Purdy’s head as Carol stood and groped at the chair before her desk. Then the desk itself. She was displacing files and papers all over as if a windstorm had blown in suddenly.

The airplane came straight at their window.