The cat in my memory

In the morning, I saw a cat in the flower bed on the side of the road. Its body was still alive, but it looked like it was dying. It was probably hit by a passing vehicle. I was in a hurry to go to work and had no time to look further. This scene did not make me feel any sympathy, but a flash of inspiration came to my mind, and the memory of "cats" came to my mind.

I don’t like cats. This comes from the fact that I had several cats at home when I was a child, which gave me an indescribable feeling towards cats.

When I was in elementary school, there was a little black cat at home. Its whole body was shiny black, with no hair at all. Even its nostrils and lips were black, and only its two shiny green eyes were there. The little black cat was only a few months old at the time and was very well-behaved. We gave it some vegetable soup and rice, and it ate deliciously, unlike some cats that want to eat fish all the time and can't eat without fish.

Our family really likes this little black cat. When I was a kid, there was a cartoon called "Black Cat Sheriff", so we named it "Black Cat Sheriff". It is not picky about food and can learn to catch mice. There were mice in the house before, but since it came to my house, there are no traces of mice. Cats love to jump into bed, and "Black Cat Sheriff" is no exception. One day we went out to visit relatives and locked him at home. As a result, he jumped on the bed and peed, which made my mother very angry! My mother yelled at it like a child and hit it on the head several times. The little black cat was like a child who had made a mistake, with his head drooped and eyes begging for forgiveness. He looked at my mother pitifully. Occasionally, he would nuzzle my mother's feet and call out "meow" in a low voice. We laughed. My mother said: "These kittens and puppies are also humane." From then on, the little black cat never touched the bed again.

It is a pity that such a cute kitten was stolen one day six months later. I guess some family needed cats to catch mice, so my little black cat was targeted by someone else. Anyway, the little black cat disappeared like this, and there was no news about it.

When I was in middle school, my family had another civet cat, a tan colored one. It was this civet cat that made me not like cats anymore.

If raising little black cats is about killing rats, then raising civet cats is purely my mother’s superstition. As the saying goes: "Pigs come to be poor, dogs come to bring blessings, and cats come to open a pawn shop." My mother believed that cats are the gods of wealth, so she raised another cat.

Unexpectedly, the first day the tan civet cat came to my house, my mother and father quarreled. I was laughing at my mother in my heart: I said Maozi came to open a pawn shop, but he probably came to open a quarrelsome pawn shop. But it's also weird. From then on, this civet cat didn't go well in my house.

First of all, this civet cat is picky about food. At the beginning, I could even eat vegetable soup and rice. One day, someone gave him some fish to eat. From then on, his appetite changed drastically and he wouldn't eat any fish he didn't like.

If my mother doesn’t give it a fish to eat, it will stare at my mother and cry “meow”. Some neighbors threw some fish meat and fish bones, and he immediately went over to eat them. We wanted to try it to catch mice, but it didn't dare or refused to catch. My mother said she had a stupid, useless cat. At this time, we miss the missing little black cat very much.

Spring is here, and cats start to meow in spring. A black wild cat often comes over. Soon my civet cat started to behave strangely, vomiting, and its belly grew. I was young at that time and didn’t know what was going on. When I saw the civet cat being so picky about eating and vomiting all its food, I got so angry that I hit it on the head and scolded it: "Look at you, a useless cat. You can’t even catch mice. Why?" I just want to eat fish. If you are picky about food, you will starve to death!" The civet cat stared at me with a pair of resentful eyes. I became even more angry and picked up a pebble and hit it in the stomach. It whined and ran away.

The civet cat disappeared on the first day of giving birth. My mother called it everywhere, but it never showed up. It wasn't until after the birth that it brought back two kittens. But it gave birth to six kittens in a litter, where did the other four go? My mother asked it, but it ignored me. Later, a neighbor heard the meowing of a kitten in an old house in a remote corner. It turned out that it had hidden the kittens there, and two more were hidden in other corners. My mother gave away five kittens, leaving one little yellow cat to raise by herself. The mother cat watched silently as her children were given away one by one. One day, she took the little yellow cat and left, never to come back again.

Since then, my family has never had a cat.

I wish I had a dog, and at least it could be a loyal guard. This cat is really a ruthless beast. No wonder Lu Xun said that cats are flattering, they look like ligers but are servile, wagging their tails and begging for mercy. If you beg for help, I will nuzzle to your side and cry "meow".

I read the story "Lu Fangweng and the Cat". In his later years, Lu You bought two cats at a high price and treated them to good fish and meat. He originally wanted them to ward off mice, but they collapsed on the ground and did not want to do anything. Lu Weng completely gave up on his plan to ward off mice. . He still liked the two cats very much, and even wrote "Salt-wrapped raccoon slaves, often watching theaters. Drunk on mint all the time, occupying the hut every night. The merits of rat holes are endless, and the rewards of fish meals are still there. It is still necessary to establish a name "It's called less than a tug" and "The raccoon slaves are beating rats all the time, the angry beards are bleeding and protecting the disabled people. Asking the canal what it is like in the red gate, the fish sleeps in the brocade grass when the sun is full", there are twelve poems about cats in total. I am afraid that loving cats like this is not a fake of modern cat lovers. But the author turned out to be Mr. Lu Fangweng, a super-angry poet in my heart. In my short life experience, Mr. Lu Fangweng is the adult man I have seen who writes the least love poems. Even Miss Tang Wan, the love of his life, only got four poems. And these two cats actually got as many as twelve poems - Miss Tang Wan, if you know something underground, don't you want to break out of it?

Lu You wrote "On the day when Wang Shibei set the Central Plains, he did not forget to inform Naiwen of family sacrifices." "Lying stiffly in a lonely village, not mourning for oneself, but still thinking about guarding the Luntai for the country. Lying down at night listening to the wind and rain In his later years, accompanied by two cats, he was able to write the poem "The wind swept the rivers and lakes and the rain darkened the village, the sound of the four mountains was like the roar of the sea, the firewood in the stream was soft and the felt was warm, and the raccoon slave and I did not go out." "Don't be lonely, stay with the big raccoon slave". This is really thanks to the two cats. Without them, our old scholar Lu Fangweng, who suffered from loneliness and resentment, would be worse than "lying in a lonely village." "Self-sorrow" is a hundred times more miserable.

From this point of view, if we keep cats at home, we are just providing them with food and accommodation, but they are always comforting your loneliness and fear. I understand. This explains why there are lonely old people in movies, but they are accompanied by these kittens and puppies. The most impressive thing is that the elderly Azaki in the Japanese movie "Looking Home" has only several cats to accompany her in her loneliness.

It’s just that I still don’t like this flattering cat. Maybe when I die alone, I will raise a few cats to comfort my loneliness and fear.