The Cat and the Preacher - Part 5

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Part 5

Much of the rest of the week Matilda spent with her circular cloth-stretching frame and red and orange thread sewing her latest needlework project while the soap operas and "One Life to Live," played loudly. Each evening–the news was so bloody and contentious these days–she brought out her Holy Bible, highlighting in yellow the key parts about the miracles Jesus did, written into Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Every once in a while as she read it aloud to Cinnamon, she’d look up and say, “Now, girl, you mustn’t be sleeping through my spiritual reading,” or “What do you think of that, kitten?” and the cat, likely as not, would stretch out, front low, rear high, tail high and loose, a snake waving this way and that, claws piercing the fabric of the cushion, and she would open her mouth wide with a terrifically flexed, pink tongue, yawning. At times, Cinnamon, too, would, like any seven year-old, try to steal away, often ending up sitting at her perch on the window sill, but the old lady would pick her up and bring her right back. “Concentrate, now, honey! It's important. You need to be saved.”

Cinnamon rarely articulated an actual complaint nor did she meow for Matilda to repeat anything. Matilda concluded that the cat had no argument with the logic. Obviously such a loving kitten would want to live eternity wherever Matilda was after both had passed on to The Better World that Pastor Todd, and a slew of other fine men before him, had spent lifetimes preaching about.

"Why can’t Cousin Carolina be as smart as you? She’s pushing, what, 73 now, but still, after all these years, belongs to Atheists of America and has the nerve to admit it out loud. I love her still, silly creature. She says she never saw an angel, whoa, and says a sensible person couldn't possibly base the only life they were going to live on 2000 year old fables from bearded religious fanatics, stories like Jesus doing magic and Moses parting the Red Sea.”

The cat scratched vigorously a spot behind her hear.

“My, some people have peculiar ideas. Isn't that right, Cinn?" The old lady had an itch and scratched a spot in her thinning hair on top. The cat took this as an opportunity to leap off her sofa and run down the hall.

“Now don’t you track that litter all over, Cinn, and for God’s sake, don’t miss the box like you did yesterday.”

While doing the dishes and throwing out the dirty tray that came with TV dinners, Matilda noticed Cinnamon rubbing her warm whiskers against her fallen socks and ghostly white calves, bulging blueish veins crisscrossing where they never used to be. She was getting used to being disappointed at aging.

"Cinn, girl, you learned all about Jesus the last couple months. Now we need to go to church together and hear Mr. Todd speak. He's such a wonderful speaker, better than me. Our congregation sings their hearts out, too. It'll be a lot like listening to Lawrence Welk."

She let the water drain from the sink, stacking the dishes on the thick towel spread out on the immaculate, tiny Formica counter top.

"I'm going to get that man to baptize you come hell or high water,” she said to no one who was visible. The cat trotted over to the sewing basket and hid behind it. “Oh, God help us, I scared you.” She laughed and carefully holding on to the counter, turned for the cat. Cinnamon, seeming disconcerted at what she heard, sprang away from her reach, out of the kitchen and down the hall. She wound up on top of the couch looking out the front window, Matilda assumed, counting the slender, young girls and laboring guys jogging by under threatening gray clouds.

But firm determination made Matilda feel strong enough to pull it off. How very important the whole thing was.

ooOoo