Thursday, June 25, 2020

A Harrowing Experience

“He fell! He fell! He fell!” I yelled as I ran for the curving staircase from our 2nd-story bedroom down to the living room. 
Have you ever wondered what you would do in an emergency? That’s what I did. Yell to alert the others in the house and race in slow motion to the door to the outside. 
We arrived home today after three nights away. The kitten was in a tizzy - running through the house, jumping over furniture. 
He settled down for a bit as we relaxed after our drive. When I began to prepare for bed, he hopped onto the window sill. 
It made me nervous, but cats all over France hang out on balconies, window sills and evening roofs. In France, windows don’t have screens. That’s how we lean out to close our shutters at night and open them in the morning. 
As I pulled back the cover on our bed, I noticed the cat  watching something outside — a bird, a fly, a lizard. He scurried to one side of the ledge, then the other. 
“Louis!” I cautioned and he reared up on his hind legs to try to bat at something before he tipped over and disappeared head first to the concrete patio below. 
I didn’t stick my head out the window to see what happened, just ran for the stairs yelling as I went. 
Grace and Jack followed hot on my heels, but Earl was already downstairs. He opened the kitchen door and the kitten zoomed inside and hid behind a couch while everyone tried to slow their heart rates. 
We moved the couch and Jack extracted the scared kitten. Everything seemed intact. 
We began to realize that our 15-week-old kitten has fallen from a second-story window to a concrete patio and survived. 



We have to figure out how to put a screen in because I’m afraid with his kitten short term memory, he might continue to do the same thing tomorrow - back on the ledge, tempted by things that move and buzz or chirp. 
I’m so grateful he’s okay. 

6 comments:

Emily Taylor said...

Oh my goodness! I'm so glad he's okay. He looks very much like a young Joey.

Paulita said...

Emily, He does have coloring similar to Joey. I know you're missing your sweet guy.

sillygirl said...

How heart-stopping! So glad he raced back in the house but still watch to make sure there weren't any problems - know you will do that anyway.

Noreen said...

So scary! Many years ago, our cat Bink fell off a 2nd story porch. We found him chasing bugs in the backyard. We surmise that he was overly curious about a stray kitten down below, then slipped and fell. We ended up taking in the stray kitten and named him Floyd.

Just Me said...

Oh my, and in the end okay. Phew.

Marg said...

How scary! Glad the kitten is okay.

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