Friday, May 14, 2010

how she reminded me.

These few days had been gloomy as i carry my morbid self through the casual rigmaroles of the days.

every few moments, i would stop and think about this small scrawny face of a kitten, whose life was ended because the world, the world is too cruel of a world to contain her.

it happened last monday, as i meet up with the gang for our usual monday night rendezvous. this time, it was Bren's turn to pick the venue, so she picked this foodcourt that is smacked in the middle of the SS2 night market.

we arrived there early, but Drew & Terry were already there. so we put out things down and went to get food. as we returned to the table and put our food down. i was distracted by endless barking from this puppy. he was apparently attracted to something in the sewer. i went over to check it out. i saw the puppy biting at something, dragging the helpless object by the front limb, as the thing lie there lifeless & helpless. at first i though it was a dead rat, but as i took a closer look, i realized that it was a kitten, alive, but barely.

my heart sank, as the image that strucked me were more than i could bear. i chased the puppy away, and stood there looking at the kitten, not knowing what to do.

terry n bren came over, and all our heart were aching. we then managed to put the poor kitten into a wooden box and terry and bren went and get towel as i stay beside the kitten. we then tried as much as we could to dry her up. this is when we notice that her front leg was broken, and she was severely under-nutrition. she could barely move her limbs, as her head lies there lifeless.

then we were all busting our brains trying to figure out what to do. i google every possible solution on my phone, SPCA, PAWS, any veterinarian or animal clinics, but came to the conclusion that they were all useless and of no help. this is when we decided to take matters onto our own hands.

we sent Drew to go get some hot steamed Jagung, and me and Bren went to get milk, but ended up with soy milk instead. we then put the hot corns around the kitten to keep her warm, and used a straw(since a syringe is not available) to try our best to feed the kitten. at first our effort was in vein, but as we kept on trying, the kitten finally had some reaction.

as we were trying everything we could, quite a few bystanders came up and showed their 'malaysian spirit', they asked a lot of dumb question, watched, then made a few snide remarks, then left. instead, it was the immigrants who work at the foodstalls around there whom did provide us with some assistance, like getting us boxes and etc.

in the end, we managed to put her comfortably inside a box an cover her up with clean white towels, with the steamed corns to keep her warm. it was as if life was tranfused back into her, as she regained enough strenght to life her head up and stared at each of our faces. her eyes were big but weary. i i looked into them, i felt like tearing. she reminded me of the many kittens i used to nurse and play with during school.

i would always save up my pocket money, to but sachets of cat food. at that time i didn't have much, i would only get around 50 to 80 cents daily, when i di get any. cat food would cost around 1.20 per individual pack. so i would have to save up and could only afford to feed them on odd days. but i will always remember how i would wait until school is over, and i would sneak to their hidding spots and serve them the cat food. they would scatter themselves around me, anticipating the food. and as they eat, i would sat beside and pet them. afterwards i would spent quite some time playing with them.

those were my moments of escape. as i feel that i am away from the reality of my life, from all the troubles at home, and away from everyone. but in a world of contentment, where small joys are the ones that really matters....

The next day, Terry who was free took the kitten, who we named Jagung due to the obvious reasons, to the vets. we were optimmistic as Jagung appears to be much better than the original condition we found her in.

we were all happy, and we even planned to let Jagung be Fishball's little sister and stay together with me.

but then came the worst. the dr said that there's no possible way Jagung could survive and lead a life that is even close to normal. she was so badly injured that she would never be able to stand of lift herself up, nor to eat and excrete on her own. the injuries apparently were sustained quite sometime ago, and the damage is permanent. she even had maggots eating her up from within... the world went blank and my emotion just shattered as i listened to terry, trying to talk in between sobs.

there was nothing that could be done for her. so the dr was going to feed her here last meal then put her to sleep....


i went home and cried that day. i cried like how i never did for a very long time. i cried for Jagung, i cried for all my friends, i cried for myself, and i cried for all the lives that is being taken away out there. i thought that we could at least save one, but it turned out we couldn't.

we cannot undo the harm that had been done to this poor creature who deserved way better.

no matter how much we do, no matter how hard we try.



Lie in peace, my little one. We love you always, our Baby Jagung.

2 comments:

Siew Wuen said...

......=(
I think..she's safe now..

gundaman said...

Thank you for making the attempt to save Baby Jagung.. and don't feel too disheartened. You did all you could.