Three Word Wednesday - Tina

Prompts:

Cruel, adjective (crueler, cruelest): willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it; causing pain or suffering.

Ghastly, adjective (ghastlier, ghastliest): causing great horror or fear; frightful or macabre; informal objectionable; unpleasant; extremely unwell; deathly white or pallid.

Unkempt, adjective (especially of a person) having an untidy or disheveled appearance.

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                                                    Tina

    The young teenage girl yawned then grimaced as she limped across the floor her cane click on it. Tired of being in pain, of not feeling normal, like every other eighteen year old, she had became resigned; her leg wasn’t getting any better the surgery had not been a success, if anything it had made it worse.  Her leg wouldn’t seem to heal and she needed this damn cane to walk. Therapy made it worse so she had recently given that up. Now she spent her days going to doctors who hummed and hawed and her nights trying to sleep with pain. The doctors had no idea why her leg wasn’t better and why at eighteen years old she had the knees of a sixty year old woman. Nor did they understand why the pain seemed to be spreading throughout her body. One doctor had actually insinuated it was all in her head. Life had sent her a cruel twist and she had to accept it. She as discouraged depressed and felt like crying, but she couldn’t let her mother see how it affected her daughter. Mother and father worked long hard hours as security guards to support their remaining two children and now that she wasn’t working she felt like a burden. Her younger brother tried to amuse her and spent long hours playing board games and watching television with her when he was home from school but long hours stretched out when she was all alone and she brooded about her condition and felt sorry for herself.

      The snow outside came down in sheets of white, big flakes covering the ground and mounting up. Her brother home from school, wanted dinner so she cooked dinner for them both and then they sat at the table playing monopoly. Her leg pained her and she placed it on another chair resting it. They heard the wind whistling outside then howling as the storm got worse. They were glad their parents were working the night shift so they didn’t have to come home in this. The wind clamoured loudly again sounding like a scream. The scream of a cat, a ghastly sound of a animal howling in a pain and cold was heard. The girl got up from her seat, followed by her brother. As they looked outside in the vast white, they saw a speck of black in the snow by the back fence.

     They put on their coats and boots and went out into the yard the girl offering a small blanket to wrap the frightened cat in. The boy took the blanket from the girl and grabbed the scared calico cat and brought it into the warm house. The girl took the cat unwrapping it only to reveal its fur and with a warm washcloth she gently washed the cat’s fur which was unkempt and matted in places. The cat softly mewed from time to time and at times purred at the girl’s ministrations. It climbed on furniture and perched high above humans, cats and the dog.

                                                    (This is Tina)

     She sat the cat down and the feline ran under the sofa and hid at the back. The girl fetched cat food from the kitchen as their cat looked on in disdain. The other cat, Whiskers, the boy’s cat, snarled he wasn’t happy another cat had invaded his space, nor was Smokey two who also snarled.

    The girl bent down with difficulty and placed a plate of cat food and water under the couch. She heard the cat greedily devour the food and went she peeked under a few minutes later the food was gone. Day after day the girl did this as the cat only came out to use the litter box when humans were in bed. The girl resisted the urge to pet the cat. She'd had a cat that she loved before and it had died she wouldn't become attached again. One night as the girl struggled to sleep, the cat entered her room and jumped on her bed. It snuggled up against her leg and purred. This made the girl smile even though the cat’s actions had pained her. 

    The girl called the cat Tina. She took the cat to a vet to tend its wounds and make sure it was well and found out it had been beaten and kicked probably because it was pregnant. Tina gave the girl purpose she had something to think about other than herself and she began to get a little better. She could tolerate the pain better and walk without the cane for short distance. Tina loved her and often came to her when she was at her worst to be petted. Petting Tina always made her feel better, even if it didn’t take away the pain. She loved the cat and when it gave birth to two kittens on that looked exactly like the mother and a black kitten she wished she could keep them both but they already had three cats, two more, would be too many. She found good homes for the kittens and then felt bad when the cat searched for her kitten that echoed her. Three years later, still searching for her kitten, Tina snuck out of the house one morning and a neighbour who hated cats poisoned her. Though the girl took her to the vet to save her nothing could be done. The girl grieved for the cat and vowed never to have cat again, but each time she saw other people with cats she remembered Tina and treated them kindly, petting them and paying attention to them and wondered if she could survive having a cat again. She always decided she could not. Tina held that place in her heart that she could share with no other animal. Tina had saved her when she was lost she could never be replaced.

©Sheilagh Lee February 12, 2014