by Gwen D'Arcy Watts
May I tell you a story ? It started one afternoon in May, 5 years ago. I was driving home to the house we had bought in the Mallorcan countryside a few months earlier. I can remember feeling totally at peace with the world, counting my blessings and realising just how happy and lucky I was. In many ancient cultures, you find stories of the gods amusing themselves by playing with humans in this state of total contentment. Its a dangerous condition to be in.
My happiness was shattered as soon as I got home. There on the terrace was our beautiful brown Burmese cat, Bella, in a terrible state. Her eyes were wild and staring, her body heaving, she was covered in saliva at one end and urine at the other. There could only be one reason poison. We rushed to the local vet who confirmed the diagnosis, but had no means of helping the cat. Helplessly, we stood and watched her as she died a slow and tortuous death, pleading silently for our assistance and all we could give her were our tears.
Shocked beyond measure, we took the sad little body home and buried it in the garden, before going in to feed our remaining three cats. Then, in a moment of horror, we realised that another one was missing, a lovely Siamese girl, just three years old, our Bonny. We searched high and low and finally found her in a dark corner. She was in an identical state to the Burmese. In total misery I took her on my lap and held her as she followed her friend down the same agonising road. Later we buried her too, next to Bella.
14 domestic animals died horribly that day in our district. They were mostly cats, but there was also the big black Mallorcan Pastor dog that was the only companion of our elderly neighbour. Someone had deliberately pur down poisoned pet food all around our neighbourhood. The most obvious suspects were the cazadores middle-aged maniacs with shotguns who invade the peaceful woods at the weekends and shoot at anything that moves. Cats are natural hunters and the so-called sportsmen were ensuring that young game birds and rabbits were left undisturbed as future targets for themselves. The event merited a paragraph in the local newspaper, the Ultima Hora, but nothing further happened.
The years passed and, thank God, there were no reoccurrences until this week. On Tuesday I was peacefully working in my office which looks out onto our garden. Like a nightmare relived, there came the awful wailing of a cat in agony and our Siamese, Simon, hurtled to a halt at my feet. Again the wild eyed staring plea for help. Again the desperate heaving flanks. Again the soft fur soaked in body fluids.
I was able to call our vet on his emergency line, even though it was siesta time. He drove to his clinic from one direction, as I dashed with the cat from the other. Intravenous medication and sedation and stomach washing followed. There was perhaps a small hope as he was a young strong cat. I left him in professional care for the night.
The next morning that hope was dashed. Recovering from the sedation, Simon had gone back into convulsions and died. Now Im trying to fix an image in my mind of Simon strolling over that rainbow bridge, his tail waving upright with just a small interrogatory curl at the end, as he goes to meet new friends in a world that is less cruel than this one. Perhaps he was met by Bella and Bonny. I hope so, its a comforting thought and an image that is less painful than my last sight of him on a steel table with tubes down his throat, his lovely head lying in a pool of his own saliva.