A brief encounter

The hour grows late, but Ida has not yet prepared the evening meal. She remains tucked away in the study practicing scales and the exposition of a fugue on the harpsichord which her great aunt contributed to our wedding day festivities. Ida began learning that fugue upon our return from our honeymoon at Niagara Falls.

She has yet to master it.

A headache with which I have struggled for most of the day has returned, roaring within my skull like those selfsame falls. Ida's staccato pounding upon the keys of her harpsichord has not helped matters, nor has my erroneous decision to forgo the comfort of afternoon tea.

Alas, that atrocious throbbing prevented me from contemplating with my full attentions the progression of my novel. Instead the day has been sacrificed to idle hands.

In attempt to assuage the taut anxiousness of not completing the day's tasks, I stepped onto the back porch to have a moment's respite with a most inexpensive cigar. Despite the fact that I spent a full seven-eighths less than I would if our fortunes had remained as they once were, I do suspect that Ida would disapprove. She finds my one solace a despicably unclean habit and refuses steadfastly to admit that one small pleasure, even in circumstances so frugal and dire as our own, might offer the constancy of thought and mind that would allow one to pull oneself from the mire of circumstance that hobbles most men. Thus, I waited for her practice to begin.

Then, as I sat on the stoop outside, savoring the sweetness of smoke, I heard the faintest mewling interrupt the perfected, natural fugue of humming cicadas and croaking frogs. I could not place the sound, which sounded very much like a very distant child or a young cat in much closer proximity. The small, distant sound repeated itself intermittently until it was no longer possible to dismiss its apparent distress as a fancy of excessive mental strain. Within a quarter of an hour, it became clear that the small, high-pitched cries were those of a very, very young cat. Still, I could not locate the source. Resolving to ease the poor beast's suffering, I paced our yard, using my ears as a sole and only guide. After much care, I traced the meek whimpering to beneath a large currant shrub at the edge of the neighbor's yard. When I peered through the shrub's canopy, I found the source: a grey-and-white striped kitten no larger than my outstretched hand. Given the lamentable animal's size and its clear need of care--rather from its mother or a human hand--I spent the larger portion of the next rain-soaked hour attempting to coax it from its cover of darkness. The sound, with its primal cajoling, was simply too much for me.

Yet, it was all to no avail. With each approach, of milk, of kindness, of canned tuna, of soft voice, the diminutive feline would dart further into ivy or bush, well beyond my exasperated reach. I can only conclude that my size and lack of fear, as well as any lingering scent from Jack on my person, exacerbated the fears that had left the kitten to cry its aloneness into the darkness.

I must admit that now, upon reflection, I have only just dismissed the possibility, which is admittedly a foolhardy reflection on my own strength of character, that that kitten, mewling and mewling as a beacon for its absent mother, is very much like Ida and myself.