All Quiet On The Western Front

As the weather turns cold, the leaves turn red and the sun ducks out of the office earlier and earlier each day, it seems that Cat has opted to spend more and more of her day lounging peacefully indoors. Whether atop a goose down duvet or wrapped snugly in her next of fleece blankets, she spends only a handful of hours awake, and even fewer of those roaming the night looking for prey.

As such, I bring you no tale of death and destruction, but instead a peaceful image of Cat relaxing blissfully, likely dreaming horrific things about decapitated rodents and eviscerated birds.

Consider this a Christmas present from that most sinister of killers: The house cat.

Devour The Heart To Gain Their Strength, The Brain To Gain Their Intelligence

There is an ancient superstition amongst war-like cultures that by devouring the heart of a recently slain foe a warrior could gain their strength. Whether this was true or the resulting increase in strength was the conclusion drawn by soldiers whose next opponents were scared out of their minds on finding themselves staring down a sword-wielding cannibal with a face and chest smeared in the blood of what used to be their best friend has never been conclusively determined either way.

Regardless of the superstition's validity, it seems to be alive and well in feline culture. The events of the last twelve hours are proof of that.

As with all great stories, this one starts at the beginning. Specifically, 9:13PM when I hear mewling. If you've been following along with Cat's exploits, you can likely guess what that means. Recognizing the familiar sound, but thinking it was FAR too early for it to be a dead mouse -- "Cat hunts at night, not during Gossip Girl," I thought -- I opened my door to see Cat delightedly crushing another mouse's skull betwixt jaws smeared with entrails, blood and formerly twitch-happy whiskers.

I sighed, took pictures for you all, then began the grisly task of taking Cat's trophy, and disposing of it via the suction of the toilet bowl. It's like St. Peter for the rodent set. Every time a toilet flushes, an angel gets its wings, or some such shit.

Pun.

While sending the mouse -- let's call him Mickey for giggles -- to the Great Urinal In The Sky, I noticed something odd about this kill. I don't mean "odd" like "we're going to need to call Lennie Briscoe in on this one"-type odd, no, I mean "Cat only ate one part of Mickey, his brain" odd. I didn't realize that Cat found Cerveau De Souris to be a delicacy, but it would explain why I'm always finding her crunching away on skulls, and so rarely tearing off pieces of shoulder or flank.

Or perhaps there's another reason. Let's jump ahead about 7 hours.

Circa 3:00 AM this morning, I hear mewling. Not "Father, I've brought you a dead animal as a present, please come see it while I eat parts of it to show you how awesome I am both as a hunter, and your best friend" mewling. No, this was a type of mewling I'd never heard before.

Cautiously, stepping out into my hallway and flipping on a light, I noticed something else that was odd: The hall was empty. Usually when Cat calls to me she's standing right outside my door. As if to wash away any confusion splattered across my face, it was at this moment that Cat mewled again, pointing out to me that she was actually in my bathroom. I opened the door, flipped on the light and realized immediately what she's wanted me to see.

Cat has learned (most likely aided by all that brain she ate earlier in the day) how to drink from the toilet!

This may not seem that impressive compared to the construction of the Hubble Space Telescope, but I'm still quite amazed that Cat found her own unending source of water. Taken alongside her propensity for killing and devouring small animals seemingly at will, and this is further proof that Cat no longer needs me.

I expect to wake up quite dead tomorrow morning. Good night friends.

In Brightest Day ...

Like a heroin addict needing increasingly massive hits to experience that same initial burst of euphoric dopamine, or a serial killer who progresses from pulling the wings off of flies to dismembering children in his basement, Cat's homicidal activities seem to have expanded.

No longer content to wait for the calm stillness and concealing solitude of night, Cat has taken to ending lives in the light of mid-day. It's a bold step, a brazen flaunting of his disregard for the lives of those small, furry things too stupid to avoid his slashing claws and rending teeth, but in retrospect it seems inevitable.

There were simply never enough hours in the night to satiate Cat's bloodlust.

Cat Killed The Radio Star

Benjamin Franklin once said that there were only two certainties in life: taxes and the death of small animals at the paws of Cat. While Mr. Franklin's prediction probably sounded a trifle strange to those within earshot (who changed the phrase to simply read "death" when Ben wasn't paying attention), he was certainly not incorrect, as every entry in this blog will prove.

Of course, had Franklin lived today, he may have also added "the inexorable forward march of technology" to his list of unavoidable realities. Where we once had horse-drawn buggies we now have automobiles. Where we once had swords we now have assault rifles. Where we once had velociraptors we now have Cat.

And like the velociraptors who were replaced with a predator more lethal, more cunning, and a hundred times more fuzzy, wuzzy, wuzzy, so too have Cat's exploits been replaced with something more appealing to modern man.

So pour yourself a drink dear reader. Sit back in a comfortable chair and relax yourself. Today, instead of a series of pictures, I present the first live-action video footage of Cat's exploits.

I shouldn't have to warn you by now, but please, if there are any children or people of weak constitution in the audience, we urge you, for the sake of any delicate fabrics or valuable electronics nearby, do not press play on the video window below.

You'll just end up covered in vomit and sadness.

Death Is But A Game

Proving that he has no regard for the sanctity of life, Cat decided to promote his latest kill with a bit of cruel gamesmanship. After drawing my attention to the poor victim, Cat proceeded to bat the nearly dead corpse up and down a flight of stairs, pausing only to ensure that I was still paying attention.

Even after the body had stopped moving, Cat continued to defile it, tossing the unmoving form into the air, catching it, then batting it against the wall two, three, four times. Each time the tiny rodent's remains would bounce off the unmoving carpeted surface with a sickening thud, offering Cat enough lively interaction to entertain his bloodthirsty mind.

"I don't care that this thing is dead! If I hit it hard enough it will move and that's reason enough to hit it again!" he seemed to say with each vicious swipe of his lethal claws.

And They Just Keep Getting Bigger

Seemingly no longer content with mere rats and mice, Cat has taken to a new prey: The common, omnipresent squirrel.

Seen here following what I surmise from the bite marks along its spine to be a particularly horrible death, this squirrel left the safety of its arboreal abode only to be struck down by the vicious claws and rending teeth of Portland's finest killing machine.

Though it is easily three times the size of Cat's largest victim to date, the squirrel's assassin seems none the worse for wear, though it should be noted that he didn't bother to carry this one inside, instead leaving the corpse splayed on the concrete in our apartment complex's parking lot -- no doubt hoping someone would discover his handiwork on the morrow.

No Good Deed Goes Undone

No doubt miffed over the theft of his prize last night Cat took to the streets this evening with one thought on his furry mind: Vengeance.

Unfortunately the diminutive rodent who so narrowly escaped death only 24 hours ago was not so lucky this time.

As if to drive home a warning, Cat left the corpse near my apartment's front steps -- the one place where no one would be able to miss it. "Death comes on furry paws," the tiny, still body seemed to intone, "and no one escapes Death."