A stray kitten's death
(Disclaimer: please do not read if you don't have a strong stomach. I include it here because death is often so romanticized in pagan metaphor and stories. This is the opposite of romance. Please also note, for perspective, that I am a foreigner in China; had I been in the United States, I would have taken this kitten to a vet to have it put down immediately.)
Today I stepped off my porch and saw, directly in my path, a tiny stray kitten that looked dead. The worst part about it is that it wasn't.
I looked closer, horrified. Flies were covering it, which is why I thought it was dead. On its legs and feet it looked like there was white paint smeared on its orange fur. As I looked closer, seeing its breath very faintly rising and falling within its unrealistically thin and boney form, I realized that it was not paint. It was maggots, clumps of tiny fly maggots. They were covering small patches along its legs and chin, and filled one of its ears.
If I were watching a movie, I would not have seen so much detail. I would have muted the volume, closed my eyes, and made someone else tell me later if it was important to the plot point. But there was no mute. As I approached, it started mewing, and the flies continued to ignore its attempts to survive.
When faced with high-stress situations, something inside me takes over and tries to be practical in whatever way I can. I gathered a few towels and a basin, put some warm water and shampoo in the basin, put on some plastic gloves, and bathed the kitten. I knew it was unsaveable, I knew that doing anything would only postpone the inevitable, but this kitten literally was in my path, and I could not just walk away.
I washed away most of the maggots, cleaned out its infested ear, and dried it in a few hand towels. I spoon-fed it some water. Through the plastic dish gloves and towels, I stroked its forehead and fragile body. I talked to it. "Oh baby, baby, what have you gotten yourself into." I sang. I cried.
The kitten went in and out of consciousness during this process, sometimes being quite aware, opening its eyes wide and struggling to bring itself upright, but sometimes it lay so still that I was sure it had died. I kept talking and singing to it for my own benefit more than it. I kept stroking it, wanting it to be me instead who was physically consoled, however selfish that desire may seem.
I wanted it to give up, and it wouldn't. It just kept breathing. It kept mewing.
After I bathed it, I had to really think about what to do next. There were three options available: try to save it even though it was very much past that point, find a way to kill it quickly and painlessly to end its misery, or to set it aside and let it continue the slow process of dying, as it was doing before I intervened, however unfair its death is. The first was pointless. The second, I did not have the courage to do. So I went with the third. I kept it wrapped in a towel, found a quiet place in the corner of my yard hidden under trees and bushes, and left it there to rest.
Tomorrow I will bury it. I do not expect it lived until sunset, and if by some curse it did, I highly doubt it will survive the night despite the mild weather.
It is a cat. I know this. It is a kitten that never got a fair shot, born to a stray mother, likely near some trash pile that introduced the maggots. What upsets me even more than just this one kitten (which upsets me greatly as it is), is that I know it is not just this kitten, and it is not just animals trying to fend for themselves against the brutality of nature. There are people who die similarly around the world, born to horrible circumstances and given a terribly unfair lot in life until, slowly, life gives out. There is no outrage, no grief, that can match what these circumstances deserve.
All I want to do is go home and be loved and watch my favorite TV shows and pretend that this is not the world I live in.
