Dear Black Cat,

I realize by now that you’re gone from this world, unless your nine lives are longer and more durable than my limited senses have allowed me to understand. It was so long ago. How old was I? Seven? I think about you on a regular basis. Whenever you cross my mind, which is quite often, I try to think about a healthy, frolicking feline chasing a butterfly. I realize now that it is not the case.

I threw a softball-sized rock so high in the air because I was trying to hit you. Even though I had tried so many times before to hit the other pesky strays, I tried to hit you that day. Did you have a loving family? Were you abandoned like me? Did you have a little girl or boy to go home to? Did you have a litter of your own to go home to? These are all things that I think of now and didn’t consider when I was so young.

I know how I felt when that hefty stone fell from the sky, smashing your head and pinning it to the root of that huge, naked tree. I remember how you tried to run away afterward and how your mind could no longer put thought to action and you staggered from side to side as if you had a ton of weight strapped to your side and you couldn’t find your balance. I remember how I sat there, stunned and frightened while you suffered. Did you die? Probably. Did you suffer? Most definitely. I’m sorry that I ran away like a scared child, but that’s what I was. I was a scared seven year old boy who never thought that he would actually succeed in hitting a cat with such a heavy rock, or making you suffer as you did. I guess you could say that I’ve suffered a little each and every day since.

I should have told someone what I had done but I knew I would be beaten for what I did. I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for running away only to abandon you in your time of great need. I’m sorry for taking your life away. I hope on day you’ll find that family of yours, that little child, that litter of kittens, that butterfly you love to chase down. All I can say now to you is there are no others that I’ve taken so much from, and that I wish I could say goodbye.

Earl, age 36