TheBanyanTree: Merlin

[Roger]

Merlin

The chubby male tabby cat with white chest and paws came to us just two and
a half years ago, the self-appointed guardian of a very young female kitten
that Barbara the cat rescue lady two suburbs away had scooped up from death
row at a Sydney shelter just 24 hours before. When we looked at their
papers we found that he was about fifteen months old and she was thought to
be four months old. He was quite confident, moreso than might be expected
as he had been treated badly during his first six months; she, however, was
very shy and insecure and beneath her long haired fluffiness there was
little substance. We named them Merlin and Midgley.

 During the weeks and months that followed we blessed the fact of having
adopted Merlin at the same time as Midge. Without fail he was her shadow,
teacher and protector; without him we would have had serious difficulties
in getting her to do anything. Not that he himself was perfect by any
means. He was often clumsy - whereas she rarely moved without knowing where
she was going and how to get there, on his own he rushed headlong into
situations causing mayhem and breakages galore. She quickly learned their
meal routine, accepted her portion, consumed it deliberately, methodically
and without pause. For him mealtime never finished; nothing edible was safe
unless it was in a container with a secure lid. So in this sense the two of
them would be opposites for some time to come, Midge light and
insubstantial beneath her furriness, Merlin overweight.

 From their first night in our rented house in Canberra they slept together
in the laundry along with our patriarch ginger tom Woodstock. Each morning
when I let them all out the kittens as we called them would eat and drink
from the same bowls watched over by the older cat. The house not far from
the NSW south coast to which we moved in June last year is open plan and
there is no way they could be isolated - yet they still slept together,
during the winter in front of the kitchen stove where it was always warm
and in the warmer months anywhere that was comfortable.

 In late December Merlin began to have problems with furballs. We sought
vet help for him and dosed him with laxatives without much success. For a
time he stopped eating but then gradually the difficulties seemed to cure
themselves and he became somewhat like his usual self. Then, early in
January, he collapsed and tests run by the vet said he was severely
anaemic. I brought him home last Friday, over the weekend he seemed to be
improving then early Tuesday morning he collapsed again so we rushed him
back to the vet.

 (There is a garden in the sky where the sun shines every day, the grass is
always green and there are paved and unpaved paths for residents and
visitors  to walk or run upon. There is a wall around the garden, a gate to
gain entrance and just inside there is a pool kept full and alive by a
waterfall. The guardian of the garden, a Golden Dragon, lives in the cave
behind the waterfall and during the day suns himself on a handy rock from
where he can watch over the gate.

 At 6am on Wednesday 25th January 2012 the gate of the garden opened to
admit a tabby cat named Merlin and then closed quietly behind him. Eagerly
awaiting him was a reception party of six - a German Shepherd (Lucy), an
Australian Silky Terrier (Dylan Thomas), two tabby cats (Bosun and
Alberta), a black cat (Spot) and an alpaca named Tourmaline.)

Roger