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