mug-wielding bug

The person will lure the cat in with scraps of fish and box them into a makeshift carrier to take home. They prepare bedding out of torn linens and a litter box out of a cracked ceramic rectangular casserole dish before getting something more proper a bit later.

The old cat will hiss and claw at the person. The person understands that, and they offer this old Tom the patience nobody ever gave them. The cat lives in their house, comes out to feed at night, may sun itself when the person is away, and dash under the tables when they walk in. After a few months, the cat's behaviour flips entirely. It calms down and for the first time sits by the person long enough to receive a few scratches behind the ear. Maybe a week later, the Tom dies.

Oh well then. This is not the first time this character has tussled with grief. They dig a hole in the garden and bury the cat wrapped around a piece of yarn it had bonded with in it's life. The hole is filled in and a piece of granite is pierced into the ground as a make-shift head stone. The hole in the garden might have been repaired, but it jumps to the person who walks back into their little house, footfalls heavy despite the sudden emptiness in their chest.

Life goes on and the earth keeps spinning. The character tends to household chores and goes into town for work. On one trip, they find another cat hidden betwixt a brick wall and a piling of firewood. She, the regal, soggy, starved thing, hisses shrilly and growls deeply when the person leans over to pet it's side. Her eyes are tired and there is little strength in either sound. Behind her a kitten, cold and wet and close to lifeless. There are others, but from the sight of them, their chance is already gone. The person takes the two who are live.

They hurry over to the fireplace as soon as they get home, lighting it up. They gather the nearest pillow and blanket they can find and do their best to coddle the kitten until it warms up enough to be left alone with it's shivering mother. The mother is more docile than they'd expect but perks up when a tiny mew emanates from the kitten. Now warm and dry, the person discovers they have taken in two gorgeous ginger princesses.

They tuck the blanket over the duo and dart out to pull the bed, tray and litterbox they bought for the Tom out from the attic. When they return to the room and unsheathe the duo from the blanket. What they find kills their spirits. They try to move the mother, but again she screams at the touch and creeps away. Beneath her, her young, body stiff, eyes closed, it's outside lukewarm to the touch. They had thawed the fur, but not the internals.

A few days pass and mother cat seems to get over it, seemingly unaware that her oldest is laid to rest to the left of the old Tom outside. Her frame fills out with dry kibble and treat salmon. She ignores the cat bed and sleeps on a dining room chair most nights besides the last few where she opted to sleep at the feet of the person who now tends to her. Any time the person lounges at home, the ginger princess is rested nearby, by which I mean often directly next to, but despite this proximity, she screeches and pounces away when she is touched.

A week later, the person notices the cat's weight suddenly plummet. They find bits of fur clumped up around the house. The cat scratches itself over and over and over where her self-made bald spots. She has rescinded her offer of friendship with the human, and now cowers at the sight of them. They are lucky to get close as she sleeps, where they notice coiled bumps under the skin. It seems the ginger princess has an infestation, which makes a lot of things make a lot more sense.

On their next trip to town, they stop by the apothecary to ask for medicine for the cat. The best he can offer them is a plant-based antiparasite for humans, only in a much smaller dosage. He says he doesn't know how it will work on cats, but that he does know it did make his own dog - a big dog - mildly sick when it got into it. He offers instead to try his hand to 'cut out the worm', which he has never done before on a person nor animal. They decide not to take the chances and opt instead to hope that the invader will go away.

For the next few days the ginger princess is treated like her namesake. She is given all the salmon she could ever need and is given all the time she desires to stare at the birds through the window. Her state is in stasis, briefly, but she starts to slowly get worse. They go back to the apothecary, and then the medic, but neither are up for the task. Over one excruciating weekend (days and nights included), they watch the princess fade away and bury her by her daughter on a frosty Monday morning.

The world keeps turning and life moves on. The pack away the cat stuff again and thoroughly clean all the surfaces of the house, especially the blanket the princess slept on. Their weeks go as normally from then on: chores, work, shopping on Thursdays, washing on Saturdays.

On the way back home, they walk a well-trodden path, shrubbery and wildflowers to their left and dairy paddocks to their right as the sun sets over it. They hear some shuffling behind them, and then a tell-tale meow. They spin around and behind them is their shadow, tinier than normal, a black kitten (a bit older looking than the princess' daughter) with mud-caked paws. It stares up at them. They stare back. They look around to see if a mother cat is hiding somewhere in the brush. They pray to whoever's listening that this one will be sturdier than the last.

They learn quickly that this one is a biter. He gnaws on their fingers whenever they hand feed him, and when he instigates fights with their feet as they walk 'round the house, he nips at their toes. He also likes to play fetch - which the person did not know was among the list of proclivities for cats. He doesn't like the Tom's old cat bed as much as he likes the top of the dresser in their bedroom. When the person decides to move the cat bed on top of the dresser, the little menace changes his tune, and the bed on the top of the dresser becomes his favourite place of all time - close runner up being the underside of the person's shirt.

Unlike the three other cats, this one sticks around. Eventually, he gets a name when the person finally trusts him not to leave them like so many had before. He becomes a welcomer in a funny sort of way - both for when the person comes home, but also for their new sorts of guests.

Apparently, word got around that the person on the outskirts of town - the eccentric though not unwelcome client of the townsfolk's many businesses - has been taking in old and sickly strays. On one of their trips to the apothecary (for ointment for the many tiny scratches on their hands, feet and chest), the apothecary owner takes them to the back to show them a crate covered by a blanket.

He says something about how the chicken farmer brought an old three-legged long-hair who'd been preying on her stock ever since it lost it's leg. She asked him to euthanise it or something to get it out of the way, but he thought he'd do the 'noble thing' and spare it's life - by handing it over to them.

They take the cat. It is a bit feeble, a bit broken in places, but not infected with anything it could pass to their little guy. The little pirate gets along swell with their night-furred menace of a kitten. It claims a pillow by the fireplace as it's bed, which eventually draws out the biter from his pedestal on the wardrobe as he decides hanging out with his cool new grandparent is more interesting than hanging out with his human.

The pirate survives for only a few months. It was already in it's winter years after a long life at sea, fighting rival sailors (that at some point took away it's leg) and poaching hens from the motherland. They bury them next to the other three in the garden, night-furred menace tucked under their arm to really make this burial more of a funeral. Instead of a piece of granite like they did for the other 3, the human marks the pirate's grave with a wooden toy boat they found in the market shortly after coming into its care.

Life doesn't stop for death and the rotation of the planet doesn't halt for anyone. They keep tending to their chores (which now also involves feeding and playing with cats), their work (which they nearly arrive late to whenever the night-furred menace claims their lap), shopping on Thursdays (which always includes a trip to the apothecary for cat-scratch ointment), and washing on Saturdays (which has now doubled in time because of the amount of fur they must clear off).

The fall into a rhythm of taking in new strays whenever they lose another. There comes a time when death isn't always the reason they lose their wards. Sometimes it's because of sickness, injury and old age yes, but sometimes it's because a local from the town comes in to visit and asks if they can take in the new one they'd already been keeping. A few times, the cats ran away to some greener pasture over the horizon, or with a heavy heart, the person had to hold onto hope the cats would carry on by themselves when they became too much of a danger to care for.

The apothecary learnt how to help with the cats - and the person from the outskirts made an ally in someone who they used to dread visiting.

Nothing much has really changed. They still live on the outskirts of town. Generally, they're still isolated from most people. They're still the same patient person they've always been. But now they have a whole garden representative of the lives they've touched and something they've come to covet as a part of their life. The loneliness doesn't sting as much with a cat on their lap, and salve on their palms.

And most importantly, they don't notice as many stray cats in town.

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The idea of this was originally hey, isn't there something kind of bitter sweet about a person who takes care of stray cats on their death beds, gives them love and warmth for their final days, and then moves on. idk then it turned into a metaphor or something.