The Life and Times of Leo

He crouched down and shivered, and quietly wept because his early memories played loudly! He had no relief from the pain of loss and desperation. He felt he had to hide and endure it alone. He walked on and on with hope slowly slipping away, but with a renewed determination to return home to his mommy and brothers and sisters, he continued despite the odds. Somehow, he found himself in the tree line of the Compound. He had been tramping on the leaves and trying, as best he could, to stay as dry as possible. The rain continued to fall heavily upon him. If he remained diligent with his search, he would find a small indentation in a tree or old log as a dry and warm place to spend the night. He had lost count of the number of days since he had a decent meal of cereal or meat from one of those cans he remembered. Grubs and slow moving smaller varmints became his source of food and that was filling for the time being. He had no idea that another great adventure was awaiting. However, he continued to search for something, but what, eluded him. As he continued to walk slowly along the tree line, he weakly meowed and a human happened to hear his faint cry of distress and fear and then Leo saw that the human began to search for the source. This initial, tentative contact, was made late in the evening and it was raining harder and getting colder. The human left cereal and meat mixed with cream in the bowl for him. Leo just lay in the vines, shivering, cold, and wet, eagerly wanting and, yet waiting, for the food but keeping a watchful eye on his benefactor. Humans had treated him badly in the past and he remained on guard. The human attempted to coax him out to the bowl of food. Leo decided that it might be better if he waited until the human walked away from the fence and that source of life: “food”! He could wait a little longer but not much. After a while, the coaxing stopped and then Leo slowly crept out of the shadows to the bowl of life and it was gooood. His fear gradually subsided, as he got closer to the food. He discovered that it was extremely difficult to experience fear when his mouth was full of food. Maybe he could trust this human and he decided to stay until the morning. He returned to the sleeping place discovered earlier that shielded him from the rain and the wind and the cold. He fell into a deeply relaxing sleep with the thought that something good was on the horizon, but, strangely, he had no idea why that crossed his mind as he fell fast asleep. He could dream good dreams on his full stomach and those dreams summoned him almost immediately.