It’s not easy being born with eyes like maple syrup.
You can’t stop hoping there is breakfast on the far side of the long, long night.
You can’t stop believing life will someday be sweet, despite all evidence to the contrary.
You can’t get unstuck from your own good heart, even if you try.
When Karl arrived, his eyes were frantic.
Huddling in a towel like a nuclear cinnamon roll, he “had a lot to say,” in the graceful words of our intake team. He was mad, muddled, and mourning.
A cat he knew had just lost her life in a dog attack, and Karl’s colony was no longer safe.
Why should he expect more from this “Tabby’s Place”? People were cooing “Karl” at him, and someone was brushing his fur with an itty-bitty toothbrush. There was wet food, but also human fingers. When you are afraid, both of those things are chewable, especially when no chicken fingers are available.
Then, someone said, “oh, he’s FIV positive.”
Their voice did not sound sad.
They said it the way you might say, “Grandpa needs the low-sodium macaroni” or “turn the heat up a little for Bibi, she gets cold.”
It sounded like “FIV” was no big deal, as long as your family is around you, and they want you to be safe and comfortable.
But, no.
Karl had heard about “family,” but he’d never seen it with his own eyes. He shimmied into the towel, as though attempting to slip through some mystic burrito into a world that made sense. It was just too dangerous to take these warm, weird people at their word.
Karl tried to close his eyes.
But when you are born with eyes like maple syrup, you can’t unsee the sweet.
The picture inside Karl’s heart was now in front of his face. It could be a mirage. Perhaps the goo of hope had glazed his eyes.
Karl glared and hissed. He growled and hid. He did everything he could to convince these fond, funny faces that he was not Karl, he was Khan the Kruel.
But that just made people laugh and ask if he was the missing Kardashian.
Laughter. Karl quickened at the sound. It was beautiful. It was enough to make him want to lean his head in and…
No, no.
He couldn’t give in. He would be “headshy.” Yes, that was the way. All those fingers looked friendly, but they may very well be sticky with icky intentions.
Or, all this warmth might rinse away, just like every other morsel of kindness before. Karl drew back. Karl snarled that he was not some doughy croissant. He was Droogo, Destroyer of Worlds. He was Genghis, Scourge of Galaxies. He was, he was…
…he was a honey bun, perhaps a little hot and cross, but…the secret was out.
He told the volunteers first, the ones whose warmth never waffled.
Though Karl hid and harrumphed, they sat gently by his side. They told him about the people around their kitchen tables. They told him that someday, someone would put a little fleece blanket in a breakfast nook, so a little orange-and-white cat could join the family for Sunday pancakes.
They told him things he had always believed, behind those maple eyes.
And before Karl knew what was happening, Karl knew … they were telling the truth.
Soon, the cat who came with “a lot to say” couldn’t say it fast enough. Yes, yes, he wanted family, and mushiness, and all the hearty things the heart thinks it can live without.
Karl’s shy head savored soft hands. All those funny fingers rubbed little benedictions into his brow. It was real, it was all real, none of that cheap imitation maple-flavored “caring” that is worse than nothing at all.
It’s not easy being born with eyes like maple syrup, because you know how sweet the world can be.
But there is a big breakfast after the long hunger, and warmth for every warrior.
Karl, your eyes do not deceive you. Your good, gooey heart told the truth all along.
Love will nourish you all the days of your life.
And, don’t worry. We’ll still call you Droogo in front of your friends.