Forty years ago, when I was at university, I went over to my sister’s apartment one night for a break from my own apartment full of crazy roommates. She was going out for the evening. A perfect chance for a peaceful night.
Her only rule: I was not to go out on the balcony. Her cat, which was appropriately named “Blah” for its unusual lack of energy, would dash out there if the sliding door was opened and who knows what would happen to her as my sister lived on the 12th floor.
Of course, as soon as she left, I went out on the balcony. When I came back in, I eventually became aware that Blah was no longer in attendance in the apartment.
I panicked. I searched the place from stem to stern: no cat.
My sister came home and I had to tell her the bad news. We went out on the balcony and looked down. My sister’s balcony was located right above the entrance to the building and that entrance had a long canopy over it. We noticed a hole in the canopy. It couldn’t be.
We rushed down to the ground floor and ran outside, calling for Blah everywhere. Finally, I heard a mangled “Mowoweowohwoow” from under a car and on hands and knees, I dug in under the vehicle to retrieve my sister’s pet.
It was alive. We took it upstairs and set it on the floor, wondering if she could walk or would she fall over dead from delayed reaction.
Blah slowly headed for the kitty litter pan, painfully crawled in and had herself the dump of her life. I can’t remember exactly, but I think she then dragged herself away to hide, probably waiting for me to leave before she came out again.
Blah lived for a few more years and that was her most exciting moment.
But I always had a few thoughts about it all. Did she puncture a hole in the canvas canopy when she fell 12 stories onto it, or was the hole already there and did some other part of the canopy just break her fall and bounced her off?
And I always wondered what the person who wandered out on the 10th or 8th or 5th floor balcony below us at that very moment must have thought as they were almost hit by a cat hurtling through space.
Two remarkable things: Blah didn’t die and my sister didn’t disown me.
©2011 Jim Hagarty
