The whole of humanity is in a strange situation right now with this extended quarantine. A virus comes, wreaks havoc, and governments rise to the call of power and push everyone into their places, regardless of circumstance. Some people do it willingly, others complain and curse under their teeth. Some are more affected by others. In the end, no matter if you're doing well, or poorly, the common pattern is that this is a very strange period.

All packed together

For me, though I've wanted to be here very often, I've been busy with life. You see, while many went into isolation, or got caught with one or two people, here in Venezuela, houses are packed full. Families live together, and while everyone where I live used to go out every day to work, now they're all stuck here.

From my own perspective, since I am always isolated and rarely leave the safety of my roof, this period of time is the absolute opposite to most people's experience. The overall isolation in the world is reversed here, where a few faces have been added to my everyday life. Now I can't wake up, move, eat, or do anything without finding one of these friendly people that circumstance assigned to be my family.

And it's lovely, honestly. I was feeling a bit lonely, and like magic crackers, fate threw company at me.

Paws with eyes

Another strange happening was something that has been coming along for some time already. After our old dog died (very loved, beautiful and cuddlesome), and a tiny rat found its way into our home, we started thinking of getting a cat. It would solve all the problems. The lonely memories of a dead pet would be replaced with those of a new pet, the pests would have to find a new place or perish, and we'd get another cat, because we've had a few and they're always adorable and entertaining. Most people here were pining for a cat.

So whenever a cat meowed outside, we'd go out to look! And while some cats licked a bit of our milk, and ate a bit of our food, they usually left, but now that we were all hands on deck, and a little kitten found itself in dire straits right outside our place, my chivalrous family went to the rescue. And lo did it need rescuing! Its mom had disappeared, and we had seen two little kittens before, and now it was only one. There was little choice.

This adoption wasn't as voluntary as the others. We didn't call the kitty and tempt it with food and milk. This one was skinny, on the brink of death, snizzing, unable to walk much at all, or to do anything other than simply lay there on the grass of our garden. That's where it was most comfortable, even though we gave it a cushion inside. I said: "now it's up to him to find the energy in himself to fight death." We gave him food, antibiotics, antiparasitics, hugs and shelter, and we were all thinking that it may have been already too late for him.

But it wasn't, of course, or I would probably be too sad to write all of this. That was 10 days ago. I learned it's a boy, and his name was picked by my brother, though I didn't like it, so I'll call him "Mr Gato" (Mr Cat in Spanish). Because why not, it's not like he'll be paying much attention to me, and if I want him somewhere, I'll just grab him and put him there. He weighed 333 grams the first day, now he weighs around 450. I don't know how that is possible. His belly is round, so he's either overfed or full of worms. I like to think he's just been pampered too much. We'll see.

And it's very heart-warming to see a tiny creature who went from crawling and walking slowly to running around, climbing sofas and beds and then jumping down from them, using the stairs as if the steps weren't like 2.5x his size. He's also gray, so when he runs around, I think of the little rat we had, may it rest in peace.

Running tail thing

We had a little rat here, as I said, but it had a short story. It was very old and very sick, and almost as soon as it crawled up our yard's sewers, we trapped it in the right in the yard (like a box). It died shortly afterwards, and strangely, it climbed into the trash can before dying. We looked for it for a while, thinking it had escaped until we found it in the plastic bag. My grandmother joked that it had the decency to throw itself to the trash to help us, but I felt it isn't that good to mock the long-tailed little cutie who just wanted to find a bit of food to survive a bit longer. Did you know that rats have a lifespan from 1 to 2 years? I thought it would be longer since they're said to be genetically similar to humans, who live around 80.