****
"It was the first night,
and Sparta was still nervous and aloof. He missed his companion and his home.
He had not yet grown accustomed to my roommates who immediately pounced on him
because of his cute face and soft coat. It was the dead of night, but my sub
consciousness had been waiting for a sound like the ear-splitting crash that suddenly
erupted. Still immersed in darkness, I knew it could mean only one thing:
Sparta had knocked over the unstable shelving unit that held my entire
collection of snow globes. I flicked on the lights and found glitter, glass,
and water all over the ugly carpet of my room. Sparta stood flat against the
opposite wall looking scared and not in the least bit sorry. The thought dawned
on me that I was in over my head and had never truly been a pet owner before.
Was it always going to be like this? With tears in my eyes, my heart ached to
have Piddy Paws there and not the Destroyer of Snow Globes as I picked up the
large pieces of glass and soaked up the water. Vacuuming the glitter waited
until morning.
 |
| The dead snow globes |
The next morning, I nearly started packing up Sparta’s
belongings to drive him back to my mother’s house. It was not going to work
out, I could see that now. He was too rambunctious, and I was feeling guilty
for taking him away from his home in the first place. Yet, something stopped me
as I watched him sleeping in my beanbag chair. Looking back, if I had taken him
home, it would have been the worse decision I would have made.
Due to the curiosity in his friend’s roommate’s cat, I
met my boyfriend Stuart, who increasingly came over to our apartment to play
with Sparta. We fell for each other and started dating, thanks to Sparta. Then
three months later, Stuart graduated from Western Carolina University and moved
to his hometown of Raleigh. We began a painful, lonely one-year long distance
relationship. My constant companion and bright star through the entire year was
Sparta. He kept me entertained, forced me to get out of bed in the morning, and
gave me a living thing to hold at night. Even he knew what it meant when Stuart
left, patrolling the apartment and meowing loudly as if looking for him.
 |
| Sparta fell in love with Stuart! |
During that time, I also hurt Sparta deeply. In
desperation to constantly see Stuart, I often traveled to Raleigh, a five-hour
trip from Cullowhee. Because of my few friends and scatter-brained roommates
who would most likely kill a fish in a day, I usually dragged Sparta with me.
For five hours, Sparta whined and cried down I-40 or settled in my lap between
my stomach and the steering wheel wondering when he would never set his foot
down on solid ground again. Two nights later, we made the same trip back to
Cullowhee with me sobbing at least half an hour of the way after saying good
bye to Stuart with Sparta’s pitiful whines in the background.
After a semester of that,
I transferred to UNC-Greensboro to be closer to Stuart. Sparta moved into my
new home where there was another male cat and a Labrador retriever. The male
cat, Mac, refused to let Sparta out his grasp. Constantly, Mac mounted Sparta
and pinned him by biting his neck in his small jaws. It took only a week or two
for me to break down in tears over the stress and misery Sparta experienced. I
handed him over to Stuart one hour away in Raleigh, heartbroken, promising to
bring him back after Mac was neutered. Even then, Mac still abused and
tormented my cat. For the rest of the semester, Stuart cared for Sparta, and I
spiraled into a deep and deadly bout of depression as I pined away for the cat
that had never meant much to me back when Piddy Paws and I were growing up
together. Now, I committed so many fouls against my beautiful pet whose
personality had started to alter because of the stress of it all."
To be continued...
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