She remembers those days, years ago, a lifetime ago it seems, when a smiling face, a gentle voice, and petting hands were hers to enjoy and take comfort from.
But they moved away. They didn’t take her.
So she learned to live along the lake, in the woods, stalking prey, finding scraps, getting yelled at, getting shot at, fighting to stay alive ... a hard existence that poisoned the memory of her once sweet life, a life now gone.
Today, the lake cat watches, her emerald eyes peering from the weeds, at a safe distance, with room to run, if need be. Smiling faces, gentle voices, and beckoning hands that want to pet her … they stir her memories but cannot erase the pain of the life she’s lived for so long.
The need is still there but the fear is stronger.
The passersby will smile and call to her, commenting on her beauty, offering to take her home. But she declines and races away to a safer place deep in the woods where neither the things she fears, nor the things she needs, can get to her.