a prayer

She ran her slender fingers over the length of the cat's body, she was eating out of her food tray. The crunching sounds made as pieces of food were squashed between her sharp teeth, she ate hungrily. Ocean fish and salmon pockets, her favourite, with the occasional dried anchovies and fish heads. Her body of pure white fur had start to shed, as she stroked the back of the cat's body with practiced motions from the nape of her neck to the tip of the tail the length of her body.

She has been here for a year, since she was a baby barely a month old. Separated from her mother when she fell into a wet drain, almost drowned to death if not for her sharp ears that heard her faint meow on that fateful hot afternoon. Both she and her sister tried fervently to rescue it, first trying to scoop it out with her bare hands, leaning into the drain with buttocks to the sky. But it did not work, she was too far away, the drain too deep.Finally her sister stepped onto the walls of the drain, feet apart, constantly adjusting the weight of her body on both legs as to balance herself.

Slowly lowering her torso deeper into the drain, she reached out for the little thing, still meowing with what energy that her tiny body can allow for. Perhaps she saw the hand reaching out for her, as the echoes of her meowing got closer she was waddling like a duckling, threading painstakingly over the filthy drain water, a mix of detergent and waste residue from the houses nearby it. Her sister kept encouraging her on. Come little one, almost there, here, come here.

After what seemed like hours, she did. Her sister scooped her up, putting her onto the pavement by the drain, the little thing of complete white coat with gem blue eyes all soaked in filth, meowing louder and staggering to get closer to their feet for safety. They carried her into the house, cleaned her dirty fur until she was as white as snow again. Exhausted from her terrifying experience, she slept in her arms, in the midst of all the washing and drying. She was really tiny, the size of her palm.

It's slowly getting dark outside, and it's raining. She saw him getting on his trusty old bike, balancing an umbrella in his right hand, taking off in the direction opposite the house, a worried expression blanketing his wrinkly face. They took off too, with umbrellas in hand, in search of her, shouting out her name. Beating around the bushes that she normally loved to play under with a rattan stick, threading through puddles, looking into dark corners and alleyways. No sign of her pure white body. No sign of that familiar meow.

A silhouette appeared from afar, a shadow on a bike with an umbrella in hand. Grandpa slowed down to a halt before the gates, exceptionally quiet. We looked at each other, frowned, observed a droop in our shoulders and facial expressions, lowered our heads as we tried our best to control the tears from falling. But doing so shattered our fragile hearts into pieces instead. Now we can only pray and hope that she comes back home safe and sound, that familiar meow ringing at the back of my head, and her lithe white body running about happily in my mind's eye and dreams.

"a prayer"

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