..cats who disappeared..

.,.there must be a place where cats go..

..we, the missus and I,  rear our cats free ranged..feed them twice a day, once in the morning and again before mahgrib..but every so often they will take their leave and disappear...always singly and never in pairs... sometimes to return after a few days, to be fed and rested,  only to disappear again...after Itek, my first tom, and Mekbu, Ayam's blind kitten, I did not anymore make searches...Itek disappeared on the day his molly, Ayam delivered a litter of seven..days of frantic and systematic searches never found him...we only learned of his death from a neighbour, the late Pak Heng,  from across the road...of drowning during a cat fight...he was fished out of the watering well and thrown into the Kemasin River...I went to the spot where he was thrown but saw no signs of him..we shed some tears, my wife and I...missing him like a family member that he was..

..Ayam, the queen is still around..

..later Mekbu left.. she's a blind molly and searches failed to find her..but more than six months later she turned up, with two a month old kittens in tow...like the rest she was fed and attended..but less than a year later she disappeared again, and has not turn up until today....my thoughts are always with them..they who left the cosiness of home and the predictable food served, of rice and boiled ikan selayang...

..Rocky Bubu when first found, crying in between two rotten planks..

 ..molly Maddyna and tom Dagu were kittens from my neighbour's molly...I adopted them and Maddyna was duly spayed...they were comfortable both in my compound as in my neighbour's kitchen, with Maddyna the only one who would follow me in my evening jogs around the kampong...the rest would only followed just up to the outside road...last year they disappeared just a few days apart...Maddyna returned a few weeks later looking gaunt and hungry...she stayed for a few days and left with no signs of returning along with Dagu not returning at all...

..Dagu..

 ..Myteam, a tom, left, too..long after he pierced his face with a loose end of the fence and I had to cut off the steel with a cutter to set him free...his wound healed..but not his wander lust..one morning I opened the door to find him gone.....

..Maddyna..

 ..my thoughts are always with them..they who left the cosiness of home and the predictable food served, of rice and boiled ikan selayang...to feed on a need to wander, and find a mate, maybe...

..attending to an ailinmg Bubu..

my thoughts are especially with Rocky Bubu, who was nursed from a worm-infested disease to health...who grew to be a handsome tom with a character of his own...who would take every opportunity to plop on my lap where ever and when ever he found me seated...

..the irreplaceble Itek..

..Mekbu and her first litter..

  ...there must be a place where cats go...but where ever they are, a little bit of pakmat is with them..