Two Tales of Texas
[By way of explanation for the long silence, she offers two stories from her halfway-finished vacation around the Lone Star State.] 1. Sitting at dinner, they heard plaintive mewing from the garage. After 20 minutes of searching, the badly frightened kitten was located sitting atop the front tire, inside the wheel well. She poked from the outside, he pulled from the inside -- the cat freed itself and ran to the other car, pulling itself into another crack. Their friend poked from the ouside, he pulled from the inside -- and this time he managed to hang on once the kitten was free. The kitten was tiny, only weeks old, but it screamed and yowled and fought and landed one good bite, enough for him to let go and for the kitten to escape behind the water heater. He tended to his wounds while she, having learned a lesson, pulled the kitten out and wrapped it in a shirt. Still fighting for its life, afraid of the giant hands trying to hold and calm it, it jumped, sprinted from the garage, and went under a bush. They left some chicken out for it to eat and called it a day. Two days later, she was in the master bathroom, near the window next to the bush, when she heard yowling from the outside. His mother, convinced her son was dying of rabies from the earlier bite, said, "You'll be in big trouble if you tell him." She told him anyway. They left a dish of water and drove off to Houston for a party. The mother promised to call the friend, who is known to have a soft spot for such creatures. 2. At the aquarium, they tried to lean over far enough to touch the ray's fins. The rays, having been provoked by the 700 schoolchildren who had visited that morning, cunningly swam just out of reach. She spotted a cove on the backside of the pool that put her closer to the rays, and moved there. One swam near, nearer... she pushed her sleeve up to the elbow and leaned over just far enough to get one finger on it. Her purse fell off her hip and splashed the top of the water. She yanked it out after a split second and wiped the outside, which was cheap plastic. All seemed well. As they walked, her jeans were splashed with drops from the corner of her purse. They stepped aside and she opened it, pulling her cell phone from where it lay in an inch of water at the bottom of the bag. Its power light flashed back and forth, back and forth, red and green. Each time it was red, it gave a little shivery vibration, a silent death knoll. They let it dry for a day, but it couldn't be resuscitated. She bought a new one that had GPS positioning, which seemed like a good idea until she realized it meant "they" always knew where she was. She turned off the GPS, glad to have it anyway in case she had to call 911 sometime. *** Summer vacation has (mostly) begun. I haven't decided yet what that means for Pohadka, but I'll be back in Carolina on the 22nd. You'll just have to wait until then, at least.
