Have you ever awakened feeling everything in this world was just about perfect?
That may be a rare event for many of you, since humans have such a limited conception of our Creator’s perfection and therefore rarely praise God for just how cool a place this is. But the animals never had a falling out with our Lord, and so they find contentment in the simplest of things.
That’s how Bridget returned to us.
She’d been dreaming about long-forgotten groomings from her mother and father, though she no longer recognized them as her parents, having no actual recollection of them in that way. But somewhere deep in that feline mind, she retained cherished impressions of the love and security she’d felt each time they’d licked her and cuddled her and combed her until she was just about perfect. It was that memory she was reliving when awareness returned after that dreadful night. And it was that memory that kept her from panicking herself to a stroke when she realized it was Butch licking, cuddling, and combing her.
She jerked up at that thought, opening her eyes to find the golden retriever’s enormous head rocking her this way and that, his thick black and maroon tongue rolling a syrupy stream of drool across her hurts, his bulbous nose puffing hot, dank breath through her spotted fur. The shock of it all made Bridget forget how good his efforts felt. All she wanted was to run as far away as possible, but just thinking about lifting her legs hurt, and each time she took the painful jolt and tried, the huge snout nudged her back into place, its touch soft yet firm.
Something chirped beside her. The hound’s reddish snout rolled Bridget over, so that her head lay snug atop one of his soft, giant paws. From that view, the cat could see the squirrel sitting beside the hound’s flank on the deadwood floor, watching them in the morning twilight. That squirrel chirped again, and the dog snorted a hot blast that Bridget welcomed against her soggy chest. Then the squirrel scampered away.
“She’s awake!” called a rat. “She’s awake!”
The big hound lifted her snout, coughed, and went back to licking Bridget’s sore, torn thighs. To her surprise, the feline found she kind of liked all this. It helped, of course, if she closed her eyes.
“I’m not bawthering her,” the rat snapped at the hound.
“Might be,” another rat said.
“Am not,” the first cut back.
“Might be.”
“Am not!”
The hound leaned his head back and let loose a thunderous bark. Bridget tried to shut her ears, but the harsh sound still hurt.
The squirrel bounded over the ledge, running to a perch right atop the dog’s giant skull. The fox-tailed rodent chattered. The dog nodded with such power, the squirrel rolled down to the hound’s rusty tail.
“Oh, wow,” called a rat. “Youh teacht me that?”
“Youh teacht me that too?” a chorus of others joined in.
The squirrel scolded them. Without a word, the rats started backing from the forest ledge. It took Bridget a moment to realize they were leaving.
“No, wait!” she called.
One of the rats hesitated, looking her way with curious eyes, but Bridget had no chance to call to him. Butch chose that moment to wash her face, which blinded the young cat.
“Want something youh want?” the rat called.
Bridget coughed, then snorted the drool out of her nose. Butch didn’t mind, turning his attention to her ears.
“Yes,” Bridget said when she could get a sound out. “You can speak with these… these… with them?”
“Oh, yes, yesss, yessss!” the rat called, overjoyed to be talking with her.
“How?” Bridget wanted to know.
“How what?”
“How do you do it?”
The rat seemed perturbed. “I learn. Yes, oh yesss. I learn much!”
Settling down on the deadwood beside the hound, the squirrel issued a long list of chirps to the rat.
“I am being nice!” the rat protested.
Again Butch cleansed her face with his stinky, slug-like tongue. With his paw holding her down, and her body aching pretty much every way possible, Bridget didn’t know what else she could do but put up with it. And besides, it felt good.
“But how – “ Bridget paused to clear her nose once more – “how do you talk with them?”
The rat stood upright on the ledge. “Now youh listen,” he snapped. “Howa long youh lived here, huh?”
Bridget thought that a stupid question. “Not even a day!”
“Yeah!” the rat stated. “Well, awlwight then.”
“All right what?”
“I live here a lot longer than youh. Lot longer, yes, yess, yesss!”
The squirrel chattered something that spurred the rat to sit down once more. Then the squirrel crawled up to Bridget, looking over her cuts and scrapes. She cheeped again and again.
“She wants to know how youh get so hurt,” the rat said.
Bridget really didn’t know. “Just traveling, I guess.”
“From where? From where?”
Bridget didn’t know that, either. “A long ways,” she said.
The rat repeated that, to which the squirrel and hound traded chirps and soft barks.
“That was something youh did,” the rat proclaimed. “Both them, they think that.”
The hound pulled his head back to stare into Bridget’s face with his deep brown orbs. The young cat felt a jolt of fear, but as the long-haired dog just sat there, observing her, Bridget realized a sense of peace. It wasn’t the love she felt just being around Jessica, whom she now missed so much that it hurt her inside, but still, the dog’s stare did comfort her.
“He thinks youh some sort of warrior, a great warrior, to make such a, a journey, to bear such wounds. Like the hawk,” the rat explained. Then he hesitated. “But he wonders… he wonders something. He wonders something of youh… he wonders if he scared youh. When youh first see him.”
“If he scared me?”
Her curiosity piqued, Bridget looked first at the rat, who seemed a little embarrassed, then at the hound, who sat before her, hanging on the answer. His intense stare made her smile.
“Yes,” Bridget admitted. “Tell him he almost scared me to death.”
The rat repeated that, not realizing just how true it was. The dog cast a curious stare at the rat, who nodded as if defending the accuracy of his translation. Then the big hound crawled even closer to Bridget, wrapped his forelegs around her and laid his head across her body, just as he might one of his own beloved puppies.
Although surprised and somewhat alarmed, Bridget soon fell into a deep and contented sleep. Caught up within his overwhelming warmth, she didn’t hear the stampede of rats around the shelter, each one screeching, “The Stumper! The Stumper!”