The Hunt

For the past couple of months, a cat has been known to be outside my house and cry out in heat. The cat is not getting warmer with a heater or anything. I'm talking about it's getting it on with another cat.

The sound is terrifying. It sounds like a little child being beaten to death. A cat in heat is not a sound I'm acquainted with (thankfully) so the first time it happened at 5 in the morning I tried to tune it out. I'm the guy who can fall asleep on a plane before take off and wake up after the plane has landed. I sleep on the hardest of beddings when I go camping. I am a pro at sleeping, but the unnatural sound of this cat kept waking me up. All I could wonder was "Why has this god-forsaken child chosen my window to die under? Couldn't he leave me in peace?". I am very unsympathetic when someone wakes me up.

Being disrupted in my sleep cycle, I decided I would finish off whatever was making the sound. I grabbed my baseball bat and ran outside to beat the public menace. I couldn't find anything. Instead, I only found a very worried newspaper delivery guy watching a half dressed young adult storming around his yard with a baseball bat staring down anything that moved on a soggy Tuesday morning.

I was so out of it that I actually thought it was a dream sequence. When my mom asked me that morning why I got up, I knew it had happened. I thought I was crazy, there is nothing on God's green Earth that can replicate the sound I had heard. I tried my best to describe it. I asked about the unearthly sound that can only be described as the cries of a dying child. Being the wise woman she is, my mom instantly knew it must be a cat.

So, for the past couple of months, this cat has had an on-off relationship. It appears at random, but it's always a nuisance making it's hellish screams at unmentionable hours of the morning. However, this night was different.

I was having a late night snack, preparing a s'more, when I hear it, the demonic cries. The sound crescendos disrupting the peaceful night that was putting me in a sleepy mood. My eyes widen, and I no longer hunger for my s'more. I hunger for the destruction of this awful creature that destroys peace for its own pleasure. I run outside looking for the closest weapon to arm myself. I see a mini pumpkin decoration by the door. Picking up the missile, I run out to the street to hunt.

The night air is crisp, awakening my dull senses. Under the streetlight I stare into the shadows for the eloping fiends. I spot one cat creeping near the bush of our house and the other cat on the corner. I launch my missile from my position, and the little pumpkin is intercepted by a tree. It explodes with the crack of a gun shot. The pumpkin shrapnel scatters across the sidewalk. The cats take off down different streets. I pursue with the desire to silence at least one of them, permanently.

My adrenaline is pumping at the excitement of chasing something in the dark. I could hear the beating of my heart in my ears. It feels like a true hunt, with me in pursuit. My legs feel amazing as if they could run forever. The wind cuts into my face as if I'm traveling at high speeds. My eyes adjust to the light, and everything seems so vivid now. The 'thumping' of my feet against the pavement create a tempo that echoes the excitement in my heart. I start cutting across yards, and beat back overgrown bushes with my ape-like limbs. The bushes have become my jungle. I track the cat I, reasoning what path it would consider the safest. I laughed as life pulsed through my veins ready to plunge into the underbrush after my prey. Except, civilization called me back.

My mother heard me exit the house and wanted me back inside before the neighbors saw the lunatic running up and down their street. I went back inside to eat my s'more, but I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to hunt in pre-historic times.