GULLIVER HAS A GAGGLE OF AUNTIES

…and how they are bringing him up right.

An essay on the foundling kitten I had no intention of keeping.

Counted among Gulliver’s circle of Aunties is Chloe, a neighbor’s glamor puss, who listens to Gulliver ever so kindly & at length in their under-the-house retreat about his baby twoubles without ever remarking  “Well, you should have done this” or “Well, you should not have done that” or even a “Didn’t I tell you so?” She simply listens & nods wisely upon some important point of an injustice suffered and politely averts her eyes if Gulliver should begin to squeeze a tear. Sometimes, they don’t talk at all but just sit together in the comfort of quiet companionship.

Then, there’s Little Alice who is not a very little cat, at all.                                                           

It’s her way or the highway, wielding her influence mainly, by means of sheer girth. Little Alice, who rails at rainy skies and submits complaints that the dawn breaks too slowly and can’t something be done about it?  On the subject of kittenhood, she sees no reason to waste time & patience cajoling when a sound thumping produces immediate & far-reaching results. Her outbursts are of the scale that startle the by-stander and have been the cause of a spilt teacup or two. Gulliver questions not her explosive directives but obediently follows her when summoned, keeping a respectful pace behind, to & fro, in their garden wanderings; Gulliver serving as her footman it’s been speculated. It’s not so much his being held in poor esteem but rather the social gulf between Alice & Gulliver being so very wide.

Mary Anne, the otherwise deferential Mary Anne, another neighbor cat, has recently taken matters in hand and decided to “Straighten Gulliver Out”.

Mary Anne marched determinedly, one recent day, to the front of the garden path where Gulliver sat, minding his own business, really. She could hold her tongue no longer.

Whatever the concerns of her lecture, it went on for some time with Gulliver sitting upright & wide-eyed. Trying to get a word in was pointless. Once spent of her wisdom & worries, she turned tail & marched back home.

Finally, there’s Myrrh de Purr, Myrrh the Beauteous, Myrrh the Demure… not to mention, Myrrh the Well-Coiffed.

Myrrh has forsaken her hours of fur-fluffing before the vanity and endless deliberation about the most flattering lace collar to wear.

It’s a chintzy apron she dons now with a curly lock falling over one eye; scrub-boards and the book “Bringing Up Kittens: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You” that preoccupy her.

Myrrh has taken on Gulliver’s training in the areas of personal hygiene, cat-etiquette and how to play well with others. It’s a thankless job and more than a little physically demanding.  Gulliver was born gifted in many ways but nothing exceeds his gift in the art of Judo. In one airborne, arcing leap he can pounce upon & hurl her body off the floor and, then, in a neat mid-air collision, slam her downwards from elevations estimated at 36 inches. Progress is slow in ‘Deportment dans la Salon’, as she calls it, and quick references to the Kitty-Kat Book of Manners are oft recited even as his attention has turned to bouncy balls.

Myrrh can be heard murmuring despairs & prayers in her best Cat-French for her Petit L’Enfant.

As for Gulliver, he will probably do just fine without a father-figure.

NEWLY DISCOVERED HISTORY OF GULLIVER’S EARLY LIFE                    

Gulliver’s  Beginnings;

The light dawned on Gulliver’s life in the convivial household of his happily wedded parents, Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Darling, in the abandoned service pantry of Drooping Rose Cottage, an otherwise insignificant manor since proposed for historical site status. The Darling home was widely-admired for its window box botanicals and dainty lace curtains.

It was the Great Mouse Famine of 2007 that compelled Mr. Darling’s need to travel abroad in search of means to provide for his dear family. Letters ended suddenly after his ship was struck by a great storm in the China Sea. That he may have perished was a subject never suffered by Gulliver’s mother, who returned daily from the mail-box with postcards from “father” which she, herself, had mailed.

Clarissa continued to provide admirably for her little Darlings by taking in the handkerchief laundry of Mourning Doves & care-taking the young, nest-fallen bird.
A time came when Gulliver’s mother & younger brother, little Dickens, were called to a land lovelier than our own.

It was there they arranged with the angels for Gulliver’s
guardianship in his new-found home where he has lived happily, ever since.