Sorry for taking your life away.. Furball.

Yesterday was a sad and solemn day for me, because I took away the life of Furball... Although it was an accident, but the sense of guilt was prevalent because I had directly contributed to Furball's death. This blog's dedicated to Furball... a kitten that I never knew, and would never know...

Please note, this blog's not for all as the pictures taken may be offensive to some. I felt obligated to at least post the pictures of Furball so that its little and innocent life could be remembered.

The tragic incident happened a little past 1:00pm yesterday, Sunday Aug 27, 2006. I just signed up for Celebrity Fitness membership last Friday, Aug 25, 2006, and was eager to go check out the facilities and the classes that the high-class gym had to offer. I was also going to upgrade my membership so that I could attend the fitness center's branches in One Utama and Subang Parade.

I wanted to get there before 2pm so that I could join a class called "Body Combat", an aerobic class that combines various martial arts such as Tai Chi, Kick-boxing, etc. Sounds interesting? It sure did to me. After cleaning myself up, and getting my gears ready, I head to my car in a rush, and reversed it out quickly. As usual, after reversing, I got out from my car and was about to close the gate when I saw a kitten lying on the floor, near the gate.

The kitten looked familiar to me, and it struck me that the kitten was the stray kitten that always frequented my rented house. It would always sleep in between the glass door and the grill when I was not around, and would quickly run away when I returned home. I didn't really pay much attention to it cause there're just too many stray kittens/cats in the neighbourhood I stayed in. In fact, there're way too many stray cats in Kulim, Kedah. It seemed to me like the Northern states (Kedah, Perlis) were the cats' territory, while the Southern states (Selangor, KL) were the dogs'.

Anyway, I was shocked to see the cat lying on the floor, with blood spurting out from its mouth/nostrils. I could see that it was struggling to live, its body was rotating as it kept kicking and moving its legs, while the lifeless head was lying still on the floor. With every rotation, more blood spilled on the floor. At the same time, I could hear its meowing, as if it was calling for help. There were more grosteque things, but I think I would not delve deeper into them.

A sense of guilt was quick to rush to my heart/mind and was stunned for a moment, not knowing what to do. Could I still save this kitten's life if I'd taken it to the vet? But I did know of any vet in Kulim! After several seconds, the kitten stopped meowing, and its leg stopped moving, its body stretched out, and stayed still. I knew at that time, the kitten's dead.

I took a deep breath, and quickly got myself together. I went in the house, and took my camera. I felt obligated to take some pictures of the kitten although the scene's not really that rosy. I had to keep a tiny part of the kitten's life "alive" somewhere to ease my guilt. I went upstairs and got hold of my camera and was about to snap some pictures when the camera just died on me. I thought to myself... "How bad can things get? I just killed a kitten, and my new camera died on me as well?? What a day..." Thinking that a SONY camera couldn't be that lousy in quality, I was about to head out to the nearest convenient store when I noticed a white cat beside the kitten. It was licking the dead kitten's body, and meowing to it. Again, it struck me that this had to be the kitten's mom!! Oh... what have I done... Maybe the kitten was not calling for help during its final moments, maybe it was calling for its mom? The white cat quickly hid when it saw me.

After a little hesitation, I head out to the convenient store and bought a pair of AA batteries. I popped them in, and guess what, the camera came alive! Phew... it was just not functioning because of low batteries.

I drove back to my house, I left the gate opened because the kitten's lifeless body's still there. I could see that the white cat's back, attending to its child. I managed to take a picture of the kitten's mom who was hiding behind the gate, watching its child... She probably hated me for what I did.

After snapping a picture of the kitten, I went in to look for a hoe (or "cangkul" in Malay), a pail of water, and a broom. Time to give the kitten a proper burial, and to wash away the blood stain from the floor.

I was undecided as to where I should bury the kitten, outside or inside the house? I went back and forth for a few times, and finally started digging at a patch of land opposite to where the kitten used to hang out. I dug, and dug, and dug for several minutes. The hole just didn't seem big and deep enough. While digging, I couldn't help but thought that I was one of those criminals in those Hong Kong TVB series, whereby after they had murdered someone, they would carry the corpse to a secluded area, and dig a deep hole to bury the corpse...... I kept digging until I felt that the hole's big enough to accommodate the kitten's body.

Using some old newspaper, I wrapped the kitten's body and placed it gently in the hole that I had dug. I said a word of prayer, and something silly like "from dust to dust" before closing up the hole with soil. I took some flowers and spread them on top of the kitten's grave. Before leaving, there's one thing left to do, that was to give it a name. I shall remember the kitten as Furball.... and I promised to blog about the incident in remembrance of Furball.

PS: I did still go to the gym after the whole ordeal, probably to help myself forget about the incident or to lessen the guilt from the experience. I spent at least 4 hours at the gym and boy am I feeling the pain now...