Eden and The Feral Way

After six weeks of existence in the wild, the brains of cats become imprinted with what my friend Esha calls "The Feral Way." How-to guides warn of this. "It's getting time," Dan says, "It's getting time." We watch the mother cat lurk around, her tail a tight tuck between her legs. The kittens will follow suit, and we know this. If we don't act now, the imprint begins.

We watch the silver mother slink through the bushes. She jumps at laughter, the drop of a glass. The sudden hiss of a soda and she's gone, disappearing into the wisteria and the Carolina jasmine, their flowers small stars still quaking after her leap. I watch Slinky and think how little she knows, how simple her life is. Her life is a series of the smallest constraints: the green tupperware lid filled with crunchies fashioned in the shapes of Xs and Os, the plastic tub of warm water, dumped and filled daily from the garden hose. She's gotten used to entering into the dull green carrier for her food. All of this will change soon. Her meows hang in the night with the weight of wet laundry.

We stopped filling the concrete birdbath for Slinky once we discovered the bodies of grackles and sparrows. The other day I found the feet of birds, their talons the color of chewing gum, by Slinky's roost underneath the porch. The fluff of the birds was spread out on the grass. We've resolved to feed Slinky more and more often, get her even more accustomed to the oddity of finding crunchies laid out for her inside the carrier. We're weaning her and her kittens from this strange Eden out here, getting them ready for the biggest disruption yet.