Cat-astrophes - Do Cats have Nine Lives? - PART TWO - Original artwork and Content

A lighthearted look at the nine lives theory.
Collected short stories of near misses and close shaves
that owners have experienced with their cats.

STORY (3): SUSIE:- The Firey tale of Susie´s tail

Being the owner of many cats sounds like fun. It is, but it does mean you will need several pairs of hands and eyes in the back of your head to cope with them.

Miss Donna Donlan, from Leeds, England, was extremely fond of her cats and owned six in all. A psychologist by profession, she also loved to paint in her own time, which was mostly on weekends.
Not surprisingly her favorite subject to paint was her mischievous cats of course. She had pretty much painted portraits of all her cats several times except for one, `Susie`. This was somewhat strange because Miss Donal had a particular soft spot for Susie.
As she explains here:
"She was a dainty little thing. She ever got into trouble like the others, I mean she never knocked things over, or ripped the curtains or slept inside the washing machine so I could not do my washing. Susie is just so quiet and gentle.
Perhaps this is why I often forgot to keep an eye on her.
My attention is usually diverted with having to deal with the other brats, I mean, cats" .

"It was on such a day when the cats were being particularly naughty that the accident happened"  Explained Miss Donlan.
"If I remember rightly, it was early autumn, near to Bonfire Night, and I had finally got around to doing a portrait of Susie. I had planned to try out something new in that I would use a candle to get some interesting lighting effects. Anyway, I set up a canvas on my easel and placed a candle on the table where Susie was going to pose for me.

Just when I was ready to start the gang started with their favorite game.
I call it `hide and chase`.
Joey, probably the naughtiest of all my cats, took hold of one of my paint brushes and began running around with it. This was a nightmare because it had wet paint on it and now he was spreading paint everywhere.
I was just about to light the candle but halted myself in order to chase after the little beggar. He seemed to think this was the best game yet but I was not amused at all. 

After an exhausting chase over the entire house I managed to retrieve the brush but when I came back into the front room, that I use as a studio, I was greeted with a shocking sight of blazing light. Before my very eyes was poor sweet Suzie ablaze with fire. I can only imagine that she had become curious with the matches I had set down, and had somehow manged to light one, in any case her tail was now burning like a firework. Somehow I instinctively took hold of the glass of water holding my paint brushes, and threw it over Susie´s tail. 

Luckily the fire was out out instantly. Poor Susie, I think she thought Guy Fawkes night had come early that year"  Said Donna smiling. 

Later, as a way of turning the traumatic experience into a positive one, Miss Donna Donlan used the incident as inspiration to paint Susie´s portrait re-creating the event on canvas.
See her final painting below

STORY (4): DODGER:- Tragic tale of Roger and the dodger

Old Mr Williams of 71 Smithdown Road, Liverpool, was also aged 71 in the year of 1971, which was the year of this tragic tale.
Known to be a somewhat reclusive chap, he lived alone and had no family to speak of.
Except for his ten cats that is, all of which had been strays he had found and taken in over a period of many years. 

This rather grumpy old fellow preferred the company of cats than people, but if we could look underneath his grouchy manner we would see that he had a heart of gold.
Most people use gold to as a form of gathering wealth, but Mr Williams used his golden hear to gather cats.
A born cat lover, he simply could cat bare to see any cat suffer or be harmed in anyway. And so whenever he saw a stray cat, he just had to take it home.

Word of this must have got around the local cat community because one morning he opened his front door and found one fast asleep on his doorstep.
"Hello there little fellow."  He said, being rather please with the sight. 

However, the cat reacted by jumping up and running underneath a parked car right opposite his his house. Mr Roger William´s house was a terraced house and located right on a busy main road. This meant that when he opened his door he was more or less right on the main public walkway.

"Hold on now there, just wait right where you are and I will be back with a treat for you"  Said old My Williams, and went back inside to fetch a bowl of milk for the hiding cat. The ragged looking creature slowly creeped out from under the car and began sniffing the air.
It gradually came closer until it began eagerly drinking the milk. 

"There now, itsnt that good old boy. Youve got a home here if you want it you know."  Said Mr Williams, thrilled at the prospect of having a new member added to his ever growing family.

However, as soon as the tattered looking cat had finished every last drop of the milk, it darted away heading straight out into the busy road. Mr Williams could hardly look cringing as he watched the stay dodging the cars as they whizzed past it beeping their car horns as they went by. Over the years Mr Williams had seen several cats mercilessly killed on this notoriously dangerous road.

The next morning Mr William opened his door hoping to once again see the cat sleeping on his doorstep and was already prepared with a fresh bowl of milk.
This time however, the ragged creature was no where in sight. Disappointed, he started to close the door, but then he spotted the mangy cat the other side of the road. Again it began making ts way across dodging the cars like a soldier in a battle ground. 

Mr Williams covered his eyes, simply not baring the very idea of the creature being hit by a car. Thankfully it survived the ordeal and again crept closer to the bowl of milk. And just as before, as soon as it had finished, it ran off again in the same direction across one of the busiest roads in the entire city.

Mr Roger Williams now found himself in somewhat of a dilemma. For how could he keep on giving this dodging cat some milk when it was putting its life in danger?

That night he thought of a plan;
He would leave his front door open and place the bowl of milk inside the hallway. Hopefully the stray would be tempted to come in. Mr Williams would be hiding behind the door and as soon as ´Dodger´, as he had now named the brave or stupid creature, as soon as it came in, he would quickly close the door trapping the cat inside. 

This felt a little unethical as he hated hated the idea of frightening the creature, but surely after a while the cat would grow to trust him and everything would work out fine.
"He just needs to make it across that road one more time."  He thought.

Morning came and Mr Williams did as he had planned.
Hiding behind the door he would occasionally peer out to see if there was any sigh of the it. After about an hour, he was just about to give up when he spotted Dodger on the other side of the street. This time it was looking up and down the street as though it was waiting for a gap in the traffic. Suddenly, the road became quiet and Mr Williams could hardly hold himself back from shouting "run now".  

And as if the cat had heard his thoughts it began to run. Mr Williams hid himself behind the door and waited with baited breath for the cat to come inside. However, instead of seeing the cat he heard the sound of a car screeching its brakes.
Mr Williams new instantly what had happened and felt his heart fall into the pit of his stomach. He came out of his house to find the cat lying underneath the wheel of a car that had parked his car just a little too quickly. When the man got out of his car he wondered what the old fellow was looking at.

"Are you blind, you, careless stupid man. Didn´t you see the poor creature right in front of you?   Cursed Mr Williams.

The driver calmly went to the front of his car and looked intently at the tattered old lump half squashed beneath the wheel of his car.
"Oh look, its still alive, how amazing is that! I have heard that cats have nine lives. I think I have to get a picture of that else no one will believe me" Said the driver, and then proceeded to fetch a Polaroid camera from the front seat of his car.
He crouched down and took a picture of poor Dodger as it struggled and squirmed trying to free itself.

The camera made a strange noise and spurted out a piece of paper. The man began waving the paper in the air and gradually an image began to appear on it.

"Look, wow what a shoot. Have a look see"  Said the driver, showing Roger Williams the now developed photograph.

"Well you cold hearted bastard. You will have no luck young man, no luck, mark my words"  Shouted Mr Williams knocking the photograph out the young drivers hand.

The young man got back into his car and starred right in the eye of old Mr Williams and gave him a wicked smirk.
"You wouldnt dare" Said Mr Willams, realizing that the driver could now finish of poor Dodger by driving over it further rather than releasing by reversing back.

"You should have been a bit nice to me shouldnt you, you old coot"  Answered the young man and proceeded to drive off and disappearing into the heavy traffic.

 It seems that the poor old stray had finally used up all of its nine lives for Im sorry to tell that Dodger did not survive. And yet, in spite of never really getting to know the cat that had almost become a member of his family, Mr Williams must have never forgotten Dodger.

Some 10 years later, old Roger Williams was found dead lying on his sofa after neighbor had reported to the police that he had not taken in his milk for several days.
He must had died in his sleep because he had a somewhat peaceful expression on his face.
And in his hand, they found an old Polaroid photograph showing a strange image of a tattered mangy cat half dead from being squashed underneath the wheel of a car.
See below

Thanks for reading my post and thanks for visiting.
All artwork and stories are my own.

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