Chapter Four:

  The Guardian

  “If you love your baby

  Don't you ever let your baby down

  Always be there when she needs you around

  If you don't you'll be just like me

  I'm as lonesome as I can be

  Because I was a thousand miles away that day

  When she needed me”

  -The Contours

  Smokey Robinson stretches deep and breaths in the musty air. Leaves dot the ground a rusted decay. Cool night breeze and owl song bring dangers. Smokey prowls. It had been quite a journey filled with a regret that felt strange and profound. Smokey, filled only with survival, only instinct, still felt an incredible loss. They were fools and Smokey thought themselves...also a fool? No, would you call a mother who leaves a child for a moment to come back to grief a fool. An accident, nature, life, prey. Death happens.

  Smokey had been out walking the neighborhood. The yelling and booms at first scared them so much they only ran farther. Until they knew. They smelled the smoke, the gasoline, the fear. They wanted to fight but the fire was already so high and beautiful. The tall strangers dark and angry. Smokey could only hide and watch till there was only ash left. Till they were alone.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  They walked around where they used to sleep and eat, and love. It was all gone. Smokey couldn’t smell them any longer. She rubbed her head and pressed his whiskers against a pipe that stuck out from the destruction, leaving her sent behind before heading into the woods that loomed behind the destruction.

  Smokey Robinson, lived in the forest for days. Eating rodents and just moving ahead, unsure what to do but survive and get distance from the danger. She was a clever cat, always a great hunter, would move like shadow through the undergrowth, paws silent on the damp earth, every scent something new, unexplored, a map, a journey. No voices but only Smokey’s own heartbeat and the world’s breath through the trees. It wasn’t loneliness, It wasn’t. Smokey was made for this hush, for the hunt, for the watchful dark. The world is enough, life is enough.

  Late one night, Smokey Robinson, came upon an abandoned barn. It had been a while since they went into the forest now and she could smell rain coming in the air. After following a dirt road for a while following her small pink nose that caught whiffs of something almost familiar, almost of home. Until they came across the barn. Prowling the outside the perimeter she heard no noise and felt no predators in the immediate area, but smelt Death.

  Smokey Robinson, strutted inside the barn, left small paw prints indented in the salt circle inside before falling into a rolling flip spreading the powder as she flopped like a lizard in a dust bath. Smokey stood, walked to the wooden table that leaked like the chainsaw next it. She licked at a puddle of blood for a moment before finding a ladder that lead to a high perch with a nice pile of hay. Smokey fell asleep curled up in a small ball. Dreaming of their old friend Jane’s lap, sleeping while they read. Dreams of belly rubs and chasing thrown treats that taste like heaven.