Apollo

They say they found me in a farmer's barn. I came out to say hello the day they drove up in their beat up van. My tail rose in the steam of the Willamette valley winter sun. My beans moist with the cold dew as I patted across the farmyard mewling toward the tall man and his slender wife. They crouched to meet me and I wove between their legs purring.

The old man came banging out the screen door with the friendly old yellow lab lumbering behind him. He said I was to be the new barn cat. That I had shown up a week or so ago when he came to open the barn in the morning coming out from the sweet alfalfa that lined the pens of the goat where I had been licking the remnants of the milking from the day before. He told the tall man that the mouse were thick this fall.

I left with the old man a week later driving in a car up the road to a city they called Portland. He sang to in a low baritone words about a Coal Miners Daughter and the sad haunting tones of Patsy Cline and the more jovial Dolly Parton as we pummeled along the highway his finger poking through the holes of the carrier stroking my nose.

The tall man and his graceful wife opened their door to me and I spent the night teasing an old cat who was guarded in her greeting much like the farmers fat black Tom. The woman cuddled me and spoke in soothing tones. They were gentle and kind in their presence. We had a nice night together.

The next morning the tall man's wife kissed my head as she peddled off on her bicycle in the early morning. The tall man poured me a bit of breakfast and I watched him pack up his tools and get into his van and drive away.

He arrived home in the afternoon and soon after a young boy and his mother came to the house. The tall man invited them in for tea. He and the woman went into the kitchen and the small blond boy followed me around the house. I ran in between his small feet and played with the feather he offered. When he sat on the floor I came close and licked his finger tips purring slightly. This boy was small and kind.

His mother sipped tea at the table with the tall man leaning to ask the boy if I was the one he wanted to take home with him. Her kind eyes looked at me and I could feel the warmth radiating off of her though she did not accept my invitation to cuddle.

They put me in a box similar to the farmer's and I sat next to the boy in the back of the car. The boy's small fingers poked through the holes of the wire opening. I looked at him with sleepy eyes and he fed me small pieces of brightly colored food. I fell asleep to their chatter.