Music and cats (by Heather)

Write a story on any subject but don't use any adjectives or adverbs. Focus on using precise verbs or nouns to convey the moods or feelings you are aiming for.

It was Albert Schweitzer who said, "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."

If he’d been watching me on my fifth birthday, he would have wondered if he had it backwards. I huddled at the bottom of our stairs, tears dripping off my chin onto the kitten clutched in my hand. The kitten sprawled on my palm, unable to draw its legs under itself. It was dying of distemper – just as its brothers and sisters had the day before, just as heaps of kittens had on our farm. I knew that distemper was about bugs you couldn’t see, bugs stuck into the soil that found the kittens and got into them, no matter what you tried.

The mother scrambled out from her place under the house, rubbing against my ankles and nudging my hand. I patted her, to reassure her and to get comfort from her.

I thought about when SHE was a kitten herself. We discovered her when we were visiting a neighbour, and loved her straight away. We had her immunised against distemper before we brought her home. She took my breath away! She made me laugh. I thought about how she had wobbled off the edge of this sidewalk when she was busy swatting at a fly, how she played with dandelions, rode in my doll carriage, wore the hat I put on her. I still loved her, though she wasn’t quite so cute, and didn’t like to play those games anymore.

But THIS kitten in my hand – all that fun was supposed to happen with this kitten as well. My mum and dad and I had all hoped that the immunisation would pass from the mother to the kittens, but that didn’t happen. The kittens had made it for a week, then begun to die.

I gazed at the legs, the head, the tail, willing them to stir. There was warmth, but nothing moved. Grief washed over me and the tears continued to flow. The unfairness, the horror, the sadness of it!

I became aware of my mother, standing behind me watching through the screen door. “Come,” she said. “Put the kitten back with its mother. When it dies, we’ll bury it, and we’ll play a song for it on the piano.”

An hour or two later, that’s what happened.


Over the years, more kittens were born, and more died. As I got older, I would play a dirge myself for them on the piano – Brahms’ lullaby was a favourite. In my case, the cats caused the misery and the music helped to sharpen it. But eventually the distemper packed up and left the farm, ending the tragedy.

So what came from all this heartbreak? Was there a phoenix that arose from these ashes?

I’m sure a psychologist could have a field day. Perhaps my acceptance of people’s death began in these incidents. Perhaps a certain attachment to drama and tragedy took root here. It could be why I cry at the drop of a hat. Maybe my love of music fired up on that sidewalk.

Or maybe it’s just a passion for a lifetime of cats that found its beginning here. At this moment, my cat (who has managed the journey to age 14) lounges on my desktop, regarding me. She has wrapped my heart around her paw just as those kittens did many years ago. Albert Schweitzer had it right.