“Mitchyaawnn!!!” I heard it where I was seated, and it was somehow strange.
“Lola did not have a cat na,” I soliloquized, and then the sound repeated itself, so I knew it was real. I tracked the voice with my ears and eyes and traced it to the extreme end, a corner edge of the room. I saw this cat with slender legs, which moved its paws lightly, almost noiselessly, across the ground. Its eyes are of amber color, and it was watching me, and from my view, I thought it was thinking it knew me somewhere. Its fur was smoky gray with a curling tail, which looked like a question mark. Looking at how calm it was, I liked it immediately and turned my head backward to the kitchen direction.
“ Lola,” I called out to my friend, who was busy in the kitchen, and she came out.
“ Lola, I don't know you now have a cute cat,” I said, moving my head in the direction of the angle where it hides.
“Yes”, she answered and continued.
“ I brought it from India last month, my mother gave it to me, “ Lola said, smiling sheepishly, illustrating that her mother is an Indian woman in such a gesture, which I knew, though.
“ What is its name?” I asked curiously.
“ Vajdushana” she answered, looking at why I was interrogating her.
“It's bites, I can't keep it, do you like it” She said all this simultaneously with the question that sweetened my heart.
“Yes,” I said, following up with her last question.
“ It is a pleasure and it is yours,” she concluded, and after the visit, I took the cat home.
Getting home, I dropped the litter box in the bathroom and it jumped down and ran to the back of the chair seated beside the window.
As it was said in my native language that “ Aluwala Olongbo ati keronje ni” which means the ablutions that a cat can do is to devour meat so I brought out some pieces of meat and fish and I fried them to entertain my cat but to my surprise, it was just looking at its food as if it was strange. I tried to pet it, and at first it purred and seemed gentle, but all of a sudden, it bit me.
“ Ouch!!” I reacted with a sound and took my phone to call Lola.
“ The cat is not eating, and it has bitten me,” I said after the compliment, and she asked what I had given it.
“ Fried meat and fish,” I replied, and Lola burst out laughing and laughed uncontrollably.
“ It eats canned food,” she said after she laughed to her satisfaction.
I went to the nearest Mart and bought what I needed, and after the cat had eaten, it became extremely happy. I took it to a veterinarian and it was given some injections before returning home.
I observed that it didn't want to be tamed so I just treated it as it is. I didn't chase it, I just waited and placed food, water, and a little blanket near where it slept. Slowly, the silence between us became softer. One morning, it walked towards me cautiously, gracefully, and rubbed its head against my leg. That was the movement that I knew it said, “ I trust you”.
Days turned into weeks and we began to understand each other without words. I observed it one day jumping and throwing different stunts from the edge of the bed downward, so I changed its name to Oskilldo as I couldn't conceive Vajdushana, but knew the name Oskilldo was due to the skill it does on its first time being happy. I learned its moods, the flick on its tail, the tone of its meow, and the rhythm of its purr. It learned my footsteps, my laughter, and my late-night thoughts.
When I was sad, it would climb beside me and rest its head on my arm purring like a heartbeat that said, “ I’m here”.
We became more than owner and pet, we became companions. It taught me patience, gentleness, and how love can grow quietly like sunlight creeping into a room. I gave it food and safety, it gave me peace and affection I didn't know I needed.
One week, some information got to me from work that I will have to travel for a conference meeting to represent the company, and I was saddened that I would miss my cat, Oskilldo, but later I shrugged it off and called my sister, Funmi, to come and take care of the home and Oskilldo.
“I’ll be back soon,” I said to Oskilldo as it replied with a meow.
While at the conference, I missed Oskilldo but just knew it was just a matter of days. After the conference meeting, I never waited and I traveled back home without delay and arrived home as early as 6:30am. Getting home. I opened the door but couldn't see Oskilldo so I went to the bathroom to check for it. I saw Oskilldo lying down and I called its name. It shocked me as it never replied with a meow, so I moved closer and saw that it was lying down cold and had become stiff. I sat down on the floor beside it and cried like a baby.
“Oskilldo is dead, what happened?” I soliloquized before screaming Funmi, who ran out from her room towards the bathroom, and saw me sitting beside the dead cat. “ What happened?” I asked in a trembling voice.
“ Oskilldo fell in a bucket of water last night, and I put it near the A.C. so it could dry off, but I never knew cold could kill it,” she replied in a remorseful tone.
“ It has happened” I said and no matter the pain, it is gone so I carried it and bury it in the garden and as I did that, I said “ Vajdushana or Oskilldo so be called, you were never just a pet, you were the quiet part of my soul and thanks for the memories” I concluded and planned to get another cat to be named on what it displayed first or named it in remembrance of Oskilldo.