Happy Returns

My paws took me to the edge of my prison.
I was trying to understand what was happening to me. At the same time, a horrid smell came over me, enabling me to breath.

I gradually opened my eyes to find myself in a small, dirty room. At least I wasn't in my box again. I was frightened because I had no knowledge of the future and didn’t know what was going to happen to me.
I used to be an indoor cat. People would come visit my folks and they always used to say “Ohhhhhh look at that little darling!” Yet everything changed when my mistress’s husband died. Then she started treating us like dirt. She had no respect for us. It was only her husband that always gave us a glass of milk or cream when we were sick. After 4 months she re-married and decided that we were just more mouths to feed. So she separated me and my brother from our parents, and dropped us off at a kitten mill. And from that day on, I wished I was never born.
I pain in my stomach awoke me from my thoughts. As I tried to find the origin of my throbbing pain, I noticed heavy footsteps leading to my small room. I was about to scrambled for cover as a small boy about 8 came in wearing huge, oversized boots too big for his feet.
“Shhhhh,” the boy hurriedly said. “I’ll come back in a little while and rescue you, first I have to get some food”, he said, with a hint of hope in his fragile voice. He had a fragile Chinese accent. I could tell because when I was still living in the safety of my home, my master invited Chinese guests, and their English words sounded funny, like the boy’s.
As my beating heart gradually slowed, a small flame of hope grew in me. And still smiling as I regained hope, I drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
As I awoke the boy returned out of breath with some food, and a carton box. “Hurry”, the boy said, his voice barely a whisper. As I scrambled into the soggy carton box, my paw got caught in a piece of barbered wire that someone had carelessly thrown into a corner.
As the boy was about to lift the box up, his eye was drawn to my paw trapped in the wire. Luckily he had pliers. The boy gently snipped the wire in half and my foot was free.
The boy picked up the box, and then he hurried across the room and out the door.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see tall buildings and hear the roar of cars in the distance. Suddenly a thought came to me, I was free. Nothing in the world had ever made me feel so good. As I was thinking about my family, a shadow from an abandoned house jumped out, and grabbed the boy and the box. While the boy desperately tried to break free from the man’s iron grip, another figure jumped out from underneath the shadows, and grabbed the man by the throat. “Papa?” the little boy questioned.
“Tokie?” the man answered his voice deep but gentle. The dad and his son stared at each other until they finally recognized each other and started crying. The little boy told his dad, that he was separated from him when a big tsunami occurred destroying peoples homes and lives. He got dragged into the water by the force of wind and washed up on a shore that was unfamiliar to him. That’s when he met Leo. A good-for nothing guy who skinned animals alive and made a living out of it. Tokie had no choice but to join. He didn’t have any food, and that was the only job that paid enough to keep him going. That was also when he met me. He was sick and tired of his ghastly work, and decided to rescue him. A groaning voice got us back on track. As Tokie’s father made short work of Leo, and handed him over to the police, I heard a familiar meowing. It was my brother!!! I leapt down from the box like a caged lion, and greeted my brother. Memories flowed through my mind as I embraced my happy brother. Tokie and his father later joined us, and Tokie pleaded his father to let him keep me and my brother. One thing that I didn’t know, was that Tokie’s father Jim, already adopted kittens. My parents. It was a shocking surprise for us all.
As I stretched my paws across the hard, wooden floor, I realized that this was my forever home. Then I fell into a deep, relaxing sleep.