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And then, one night, he did.

I opened the door and there he was, running round from under the porch at the front of the house, just like always.  Thinner, certainly; desperately hungry and thirsty; desperate for affection too.  But, excepting a number of scratches about his head, perfectly sound, perfectly all right.

The most probable story I can concoct as to what happened to him is that he caught scent of a female in heat and took off after her, then got lost.  Otherwise I can see no reason why he would have stayed away for so long – two full weeks!

CAT

A period of elation followed his return, a happy continuation of my feeling of being freed from the rule of all authority:  by which I mean the lingering desire on the one hand for some force – not "God," precisely; call it, simply, "Life" – to teach me and care for me, or care about me, at any rate; and my oppressive belief on the other hand that, lacking any such metaphysical protector, I myself must embody, and so bear responsibility for, all the commanding edicts and damning severity of an authoritative presence.

What's returned in its stead is the simple music of living.  For now, at least, I feel the life-force coursing through me like a ribbon of music – a silent song.  To which language gives a meaningful sound:  words are its notes.

Slowly, of course, the old frights are creeping back in (though perhaps they hold just a little less sway over me now); and I note how frequently I refuse to look at myself squarely, but see me sideways through romantic eyes; how I continue to beg and plead for acceptance by the status quo in myriad little ways – albeit always in the hope that it will be on my own terms . . .

I take my cat to the veterinarian's and have him neutered.  I abhor having to do this, and view it as nothing more than a necessary evil.  Were it a matter of this one cat alone risking himself in order to fulfill his animal nature, I would leave him to take his chances.  But of course, also at risk are future generations of animals both unwanted and unneeded, some of whom might well be sentenced to a life of homelessness, or end up at a shelter, their fate dependent on the whims of human mercy.  So I have had the sex cut out of my cat.  Too poorly equipped to survive in the "wilds" of civilization, I enforce the requirements of his domestication via surgical mutilation.  For his safety – and my comfort – I seek to extinguish his feral desires.  Were I a braver sort, I might well suggest that I'd acted to help forward the extinction of all his kind.  But such extinction, I know, is never likely to become a realistic scenario; and I cannot really claim to have done more than what the exigencies of circumstance required.  I have had my cat made into a eunuch.  Such is his lot in this makeshift world – and such is mine.