the Spirit of Spring

A story from Wonderland by Hitomi

the Spirit of Spring

Greetings!

June Weather: sunny

Spring flowers were blossoming in our Wonderland neighborhood.I took my sketchbook and crayons and headed to a neighborhood excursion to draw the flowers blooming outside.

At the first block I saw the house full of tulips blossoming. I opened my sketchbook.

Spring always made me feel that something good was going to happen. Maybe Lisa will come back today, or Don will complete his script, or suddenly Kenny will be an honor student.

Lying on the flowerbeds of the tulips, I smiled.

Then with full of spring spirits, I walked further.

When I reached to the second block, I saw the lavenders and the daffodils gently dancing with the spring breeze. I opened my sketch book again. I knew I wasn't supposed to pick any of those flowers, but I wanted to share my spring spirits with my girlfriend, so I yanked some of them from the stems and walked further to another block.

Excited about another spring I was about to encounter, I kept walking.

Then at the third block, I saw a beautiful, mesmerizing and irresistible...

A female cat leaning against the fence.

Before I realized, I was already holding out to her face the flowers I had just picked for my girlfriend. She took the flowers, not so impressed, and said, "I'm not from around here. I am just waiting for my owner to pick me up. We were cruising with her convertible. When she made a quick turn, I got thrown out of it." She sounded edgy, trying to hide her nervousness of being left alone in the unfamiliar place, so I assured her that her owner would find her soon.

"Her convertible is a blue Mustang.In case you see her."

Again I assured her that I would also pay complete attention to it.

Then she glanced at me.

"Do you live around here? Are you a stray?"

I told her where I lived and offered her that she could come visit us anytime,

but she didn't look so interested in my invitation.

"Right.You don't look like a stray. Are you an artist?"

She pointed at my sketchbook and crayons I carried with me.

I offered to show my flower drawings and opened my sketchbook, but she waved her paws to stop me.

"Are you from the shelter? Were you adopted or something?" She asked.

I was in the shelter once, but I ran away from there, so I wasn't adopted from the shelter, but I said yes.

"So do you have a paper from the shelter that proves you were legally adopted?"

I looked at her blankly.Roiling her eyes as if she were laughing at my ignorance, she went on.

"For example, I am a pure American short hair born in the house where I live now. I have a paper that proves it.Techinically without that paper you can't dream American dream officially. spring spirit 7

That kind of paper I 'm talking about."

I had no clue what she was saying, but the way she talked kept me from asking further questions about the paper, so I said that I did have paper somewhere in my closet and I had to look for it. She gave me a skeptical look, but nodded.

"You should. It's important nowadays.They are trying to catch people without paper.Once they are done with people, they might do the same thing to us."

Definitely. I agreed just to make myself look serious on the subject she was talking about.

"It's just the color of your fur sort of got me. Sorry about that."

She shrugged her shoulder, and I looked at my fur, trying to figure out what she meant.

Then she seemed distracted from our conversation to look for a blue convertible Mustang on the street. But when she found no Mustang, she got her attention back to me again and whispered, "I hardly see any pure breeds here .The cat I just met has blue eyes with the shape of Japanese cats' and his ears was definitely Scottish fold's. What kind of neighborhood is this? What breed are you?"

Another word that I had never heard of, Breed.

But I said I was also an American short hair.

She stared at me, paralized.

"We don't look the same."

We looked the same to me.

A cat.

Then she took her collar off from her neck and opened the photo pendant hanging to it. It had the photo of a beautiful sharp looking brown cat.

"He was my roommate for five years. He died a few months ago. Muhammad."

I said he was handsome and he really was.

"We shared everything, food, toys and our dreams. He said he was from Saudi Arabia."

The name of the country sounded foreign to me, so I asked where Saudi Arabia was.

"I don't have a map with me right now."

For a second I wondered why she needed a map to tell me where her roommate who lived with her for 5 years came from, but I let it go.

" It was tragic that my owner couldn't get him a pet insurance somehow. That made it difficult to give him a full treatment. After Muhammad died, my owner and I prepared his funeral in grief, and then in the middle of the ceremony, his whole family came. But they didn't come from Saudi Arabia." spring spirit 13

She looked in my eyes.

"They came from El Salvador.Muhammad was actually from El Salvador in Mexico."

EL Salvador or Mexico? Which one?

"He came from THAT way!"

She shouted, pointing toward the south.

"Muhammad came here with no paper!"

Did he?

"Yes! Absolutely! I think."

So you found the paper that proved he came with no paper?

She stood still in anger,squeezing her pendant in her paw.

"He came from THAT WAY!!"

She again pointed to the south and I looked at the direction she was pointing at,trying to find what she was talking about. But I saw nothing.

Whatever I asked, it seemed like an off-the -point question that set her off.

I was sorry to see her in such anger,but by then I was completely lost

and the only one thing I knew for sure was my spring spirits toward her dwindled.

Does that so matter? After both he and she had a wonderful seven years together,

I asked her if that mattered so much. Then I asked her why she cared so much about where he came from instead of who he was.

But at that very moment Blue convertible Mustang stopped along the side walk and she dashed to the car.

Before Mustang zipped down the street with squeaky noise, she glanced at me without a word and I saw the flowers I gave her in her paws.

I ran back home without turning around. When I opened the door in my apartment, I saw my girlfriend taking a nap on the couch. I ran to her and lay right next to her. Then I realized I didn't have my sketchbooks and crayons with me. I must have dropped while running back home. I thought about the flowers that I had picked to share with my girlfriend. I regretted that I gave them to someone else.

But then I had second thought. Probably those spring flowers went to where they were supposed to.She needed them.

spring spirit don That evening I asked Don to call the shelter and find out what breed I belonged to.Sitting at the desk and typing on the keyboard, Don answered, "Don't worry about that. Just mingle. Then one day no one talks about breed anymore."

Then I asked about my pet insurance. "Take lots of vitamins and be happy. Then you won't get sick." said Don.

Then I asked about my paper.

With his full attention on the computer and without even looking at me, he said, "With or without it, we all love you, no matter what." and patted my head.

I took the late night walk around the apartment. I fully got my spring sprit back from where I was supposed to find. I was never more content with what I had in my life.

Before entering the hall, I gave the last look at our apartment complex.

Then I noticed one thing. "For Rent" sign which had been on the window above the Malchoviches was gone..........................to be continued.

To read the previous stories, visit:http://tinyurl.com/ldo9d4