Angel and Abby's Biography
Hey, all. this is the autobiography on angel and abysinthe, that i wrote in my class, Creative Writing Non-Fiction....hope you like it. i am open to whatver suggestions/critisism/compliments that you would like to offer, so if you do, just send it to me in a message, or email me at [email protected]... or just post them up :D
BY THE WAY- (DISCLAIMER)
SOME OF THIS MAY BE GRAPHIC TO YOU, I AM ONLY WRITING THE TRUTH AND THE THAT THINGS HAPPENED EXACTLY AS THEY DID...
Angel and Abby's Biography
when i first got angel and abby, my two cats, i had been looking in the nickel ads for 1 cat. i remember hating going through the newspaper, 'cuz the ink quality was crap, and i kept on getting black all over my hands and the white shirt i was wearing. And i was having no luck with finding myself a kitten either. Everything that i came across was some special breed that cost 500 some odd dollars, or more. I didn't want any particular breed, i just wanted a kitty whom i could love, and would love me back (not counting the fact that i didn't want to spend money on a cat...you don't BUY friends).
after scanning the newspaper for some time, and about to give up, i found an ad (finally!!), that said "free kittens to good home, nice potty trained mutts." perfect. So i took down the number, and called the lady listed in the add. after about five rings, and me just waiting for an answering machine to leave a message on, a voice raspy from cigarettes, among other things, but still young sounding answered, "hello?" "Hi, my name is Dionne Verba and I'm calling about the kittens you put an add in the paper for?
the voice on the other end laughed and i remember it sounding horrible to my ears, like gravel grating underneath car tires. "oh. that." she said, "my mother put that up. i would have just rather have fed the little shits to the dog." she laughed again and then went into an almost hysterical coughing fit. then she stated hoarsely "i got two left. you gonna take 'em?" "ummm..." i said stupidly, "i justed wanted one." the voice on the other end, whom the ad in the paper had listed as "Sherri", suddenly turned sickly sweet (i have a vague recollection of being reminded of some kind of syrupy, sugary poison, like caramel-flavored lye, or something), "well that's unfortunate. we have an appointment with the vet to get them both euthanized tomorrow. you wouldn't want to be responsible for the death of an defenseless kitten, would you?"
That hit me HARD, and like a stone hitting the bottom of a deep well, i felt my heart drop deep down into the pit of my stomach. i went to say something along the lines of telling her to as politely as i could, that she was a cold-hearted bitch and deserved to rot in hell (in not so many words), but something completely different came out; "i....i can take both, and try to give one away at Wal-Mart." i stammered. the woman snorted indifferently, "good luck on that. what's your address, i will drop them off tomorrow." Instinct came into play, i did not want this woman to know where i lived. luckily i lived in a secure building, the kind you couldn't get into without dialing a code at the bottom. So in the the span of about 5 seconds i decided to have her meet me out front.
Next Day-
at approximately 15 minutes before i had to meet this woman, i sat myself on the cold stone steps that was in the front of my red brick apartment building. As i randomly scanned the parking lot for the white ford tempo i was supposed to be looking for, i began to have somewhat of an internal battle with myself. I between mixed waves of fear and excitement, intermingled with a tinge of anxious nausea. Exactly what kind of responsibility am i taking on here? I thought to myself. I mean, I've had cats literally all my life, but i was on my own now, without the help of my mother reminding me to feed them, or just doing it for me. Would you even be able to handle it? My racing mind whispered to me accusingly. What if you forget to feed it? It taunted; “Or what if it somehow gets outside and gets lost, or hit by a car. Then it will die at your hands. I bet you won't even have the guts to give the other away. I really hate how morbid my mind can be.
At a quarter past four, forty-five minutes after this Sherri character was supposed to show up and meet me outside, i gave up. Sighing, i turned to drag myself up the stairs, “she probably had them put to sleep anyways.” i grumbled to myself, shuddering as i did so. As i went to insert my key into the entrance door, i heard a car screech up behind me, tires and brakes squealing maniacally. I turned sharply to which dumb ass teenager from my apartment had arrived, in all their retarded road-raging glory. What i came to see in fact was a white ford tempo, in the most shabbily beat up condition. It was her, i was sure of it. I was going to attempt some kind of humor and ask her how “winning” the last demolition derby was, when she jumped out of said tin-can on wheels and yelled to me hoarsely, “Are you Diana??” She pronounced my name wrong! Even though i had repeatedly said it to her on the phone! I felt my neck muscles tense and my left eyeball kind of wanted to twitch. If i hadn't completely loathed this woman before, i definitely did now. Maybe it's the wrong person. I thought to myself, rhetorically. It became even more rhetorical, as the woman swung out a battered and broken pet carrier from the back seat of her beater. As she did so, she yelled/half screeched acidly to me, “i asked you a question. Is your name Diana?!” i didn't even correct her, i just nodded dumbly as this disgustingly thin woman approached me, cats in tow.
She was repulsive. With stringy hair that may have at once been blonde, a snarling pock-marked face that sneered and scowled at the same time, and an almost empty mouth, filled with blackened, rotting teeth. But that wasn't the worst of her. The worst was her overwhelming stench. A combination of vomit, body odor and cat urine. Not cat urine from cats, but the ammonia smell of meth lab (i know this because i had a friend whose apartment always smelled like it, and we found out that it was her downstairs neighbor cooking it, when the guy got busted). It threatened to overpower me, and i had to hold my breath to force down the gorge that was threatening to erupt from my viscera.
Meanwhile, she had thrust the beat-up cat carrier into my already shaking hands, then stalked off back to her vehicle, saying as she went “my boyfriend is going to miss slamming that little shits tail into the door. That was his favorite game. He did it when he was high, you know how it is.” i stood there with my mouth hanging wide open in shock, as she roared away, half of her bumper falling off as she went.
In the elevator-
As i rode the elevator to where my apartment was located, on the third floor, i heard a weak mew come from deep within the cage. I shook my head, as if awakening from a daze, and held the Pet Taxi gently level to my eyes. Inside, two sets of terrified little eyes, constricted from the lack of light, stared back at me. The one on the left (i couldn't tell what color they were, due to the dimness of the elevator and the roof of the carrier blocking whatever light did try to shine through), mewed again. It was so pathetic and defenseless and innocent, my heart melted.
I brought them up to the bathroom in my studio apartment, where there was already food and a litter box prepared for them, and shut the door. Setting the carrier gently down on the linoleum, and opening the latch that held the guard in place, i began to commence with coaxing them out. Again, i was overwhelmed by the meth smell, it engulfed the entire inside of the cage. I held my breath once more, and reached in to immediately pull the poor kittens out of the dirty, disgusting cage they had been in for lord knows how long. The sight of them literally drew the breath from my lungs, and i choked. In my hands i held two very scared little babies, the size of my open palm. They were so badly malnourished, their rib cage showed with such detail, like it was chiseled out of stone. I could feel their spines through what was supposed to be their stomachs, and they were literally infested with fleas and mites, i could see them crawling freely about in the white of the black and white ones fur, about 10 per each square inch of his body. Then i noticed the black and white ones tail. It was horribly twisted and mangled, and when i touched it slightly, the little cat yowled in pain. I brought my hand back with blood on it. This must be what that damnable woman meant about her boyfriend's games. I gathered the tiny souls close to my heart, and feeling their own terrified little heartbeats race, i buried my head into their little bodies and cried.
After carefully defleaing them with a special and expensive treatment made just for kittens, i noticed that weren't eating the special kitten food i had set out for them. I began to bottle-feed them with an eyedropper, until they were able to progress to soft food, and on to solids. And they started to warm up to me, especially the black one. She couldn't meow, and when she'd try to, she'd look at me with her big orange eyes, and no sound would come out. It made me cry every time. I named her Angel, due to her affectionate nature and what i came to refer to as her “empty meow”. The other little one, the black and white one, whom turned out to be male, had bad coordination problems from his mutilated tail. He would race through the house from some unseen force, and would run full speed into literally everything, from doors, to cupboards and cabinets to walls and whatever else happened to be in his way, and he would sometimes for no apparent reason just lose balance and fall over. There is an alcohol called “Abysinthe” that apparently makes you hallucinate, so that became his name, given due to his hallucinogenic nature. I also learned, as i went in to have him fixed, that according to the veterinarian, that he had some slight brain damage, due to enduring the abuse from the crazy people that i had evidently saved his life, and his sister's from.
So there they were, my two misfit kittens, as my newfound children. It has been over a year now, and Angel has learned how to meow, and does so quite frequently in her starved-for-attention-needy-kitty manner, and Abysinthe's (also known as “Abby”), balance has gotten a lot better, tho his tail hasn't. But it is so darned cute when he tries to lash it about, since he can only move the tip.
...upon moving out 6 months later, i can still recall seeing the tossed-out meth-infested and broken Pet Taxi, sitting next to the dumpster where i had left it...
...i never gave either away at Wal-Mart.
