Chronicle of the Lost Mich
Chronicle of the Lost Mich
This is the story of The Mich
Who was on a spiritual retreat
In a church around the corner
For ten days.
He came back on Tuesday,
Not in the most…
Exquisite
Nor, elegant
Way.
No.
He arrived locked in a cage
From the animal ambulance
That hunted him down
By luring him with open cans
Of meat in juice from the Albert Heijn.
But no! I told them,
He likes Gourmet’s pâté.
Les mousselines
He’s very picky about his food.
And so, the night before his return,
When they were still trying to catch him
And we were not totally sure that it was him at all,
The couple from the church
Sent me a picture of the bandit
Asking, is this your cat?
And there he was,
Eating pâté in church
As if it was the coolest thing
Sitting on top of the cage
Open,
Not closed, as it should be,
Because the trap wasn’t properly attached.
And The Mich ate the pâté.
It was like this.
On Saturday, June 12, The Mich,
Did not return from his nocturnal adventures.
We waited for him all day, but he didn’t show up, so
The next day I put an announcement on the Facebook page
De gevonden en vermiste dieren
Of lost and found animals in the area.
In addition to placing an ad on a website of the same type.
The messages started coming in.
One said that he had seen him in the small cemetery around the corner.
Another, in Duindorp, a neighborhood nearby,
Another one, in the Marcelisstraat…
And so began my wandering through the streets
Looking for The Mich
Mich, Mich, Mich, I called him, carrying in my pockets
Dirty socks and T-shirts
Because Marcel had told me
That cats are attracted to our smells
That’s why we have to go around looking for them with stinky clothes
perfumed with our substances
and I went walking in concentric circles
every day bigger and bigger
to the end of the world…
The thing is, The Mich was nervous.
The neighbors brought a kitten, Smooky,
who came every day to visit him, curious.
But The Mich is not very sociable
He doesn’t appreciate the mischievousness of the smaller ones
And he would hiss at him, chase him away, poor Smooky, he just wanted to play.
Besides, the girls upstairs would throw things at him.
When he stretched out to rest on top of the neighbor’s shed
They’d throw cookies and waffles, and he’d get irritated.
So, I thought, The Mich said, enough, I’m going on vacation,
And got in the little yellow car and went to France.
Then someone told me that they saw him in a communal garden in Duindorp,
So, I biked there, and when I saw that paradisiacal place,
Well, I thought, The Mich is never coming back,
Here he has flowers, bushes, and a compost heap full of mice!
But no, I didn’t find him there either.
Every day I looked on the internet
On the found cats page,
Dead or alive,
To see if The Mich showed up anywhere.
Until one day, on a Monday, when I had already lost all hope,
A notice appeared, without a photo,
Cat found in a church in the Keizerstraat (just around the corner)
Black with white (The Mich)
About four years old (The Mich)
Scared, can’t be touched (The Mich!)
By then, nine days had already passed.
I called them
He was locked in the balcony of the church where the tiered pews are.
They didn’t want him to go down to the main hall
Because he was shitting and pooping everywhere
And eating the mice that were hiding
Like him
Under the bleachers.
They couldn’t catch him, he ran away every time someone came near.
I went to call him, but he didn’t show up.
Marcel went to call him, and he didn’t show up either.
He had become a pest, poor Mich.
Hence,
The cage,
Which didn’t work the first time.
But the second time,
When they put the pâté inside and fixed the system that closes the door,
Meow! They got him.
We brought him home in the cage
And when he came out, first, he was angry, very angry,
Hissing and growling all over the place.
Until, after eating four cans of pâté,
He calmed down,
Settled in his box in the living room
And went to sleep.
Now, his spiritual retreat in the church
Is but a memory,
And an experience that I doubt
He will want to repeat.
The Mich in his new throne, finally, able to relax.
#070vermistegevondendieren #dierenambulance #scheveningeanchronicles #poetry #chronicles #scheveningen