Oh Dear Now the Darkness Begins

I was up at 8am, but of course it was really 7am, oh dear now the darkness begins.

Milo is energetic leaping all over the lounge room. He is instantly around my ankles as I shuffle into the kitchen and push the button on the coffee machine. He rubs against my legs, he purrs as he climbs into my lap, as I sit in front of my computer.

I let Buddy in. When I look for him not long after, with my freshly made coffee in my hand, he is no where to be seen. I call him twinkle toes, because despite being a noisy dog most of the time, when he wants to be he can be as silent as a mouse. When I check upstairs in the bedroom, always his intended destination first thing in the morning, he is quite settled on the bed next to Sam, stretched out. Buddy opens one eye, as if to say, I’m good here, oh so comfortable.

It is a lovely morning. The time has changed, I have an extra hour to enjoy.

I hear the cat door swing and I get up to see Milo walking up the walkway up the side of the house. Success, I think, we have been giving him cat door lessons for the last week, and he’d mastered the coming in, but we hadn’t seen him going out yet. That was the first time I’d seen him exit the house under his own reconnaissance. And it was only yesterday that we removed his kitty litter completely, so we were at home to see how he managed without it. Yay, I think.

I watch him walk around to the pond. I keep an eye on him as he brushes up against the rockery all feline, languid and slinky. I suspect he may be hunting the gold fish in the pond. I’ve seen him lurking. I’ve seen him strike the pose, assume the position of the hunter, but I haven’t seen him attempt to catch any fish, not yet.

I vaguely notice a bird land on the side fence, with a flap of its wings some where in my peripheral vision. Milo springs, he shoots across the back yard at speed invisible to the eye. One bound and he is on the raised garden, second bound he is up on the fence and by the time I reposition myself around the lounge room furniture, there seems to be a puff of feathers dispersing around Milo on top of the fence. He is looking over into the next yard with that cat-like hunter look on his face, balancing on four paws, standing on a centimetre square of fence top, perfectly. I feel a chill run up my spine.

I was happy for him to chase away the black birds and the Indian Mynas that seem to inhabit our garden, continuously scratching the mulch onto the paving. But that puff of grey feathers was most likely one of the pigeons that has been nesting in our back yard for years. No Milo, I think, it is the rats and the mice that I want you to hunt, it wasn’t the birds that I got you for. I shake my head. I shrug. Collateral damage, I think, and I wonder if that is bad? I’m sure the pigeon isn’t native though, but I have got used to it being around. I’m sure it doesn’t dig the garden either. Still, it does sit in the macadamia tree at night and shits all over the paving.

I feel a bit like I have introduced Abbott’s refugee policy to our quiet back yard oasis, a blanket policy of excluding displace people. I wonder if I should have called Milo Scott Robinson? I laugh to myself when I realise I got it wrong. I’m sure that isn’t a bad thing, who wants to commit him to memory? Milo Scott Morrison, lethal to all non indigenous travellers.

Milo comes in a short time later and lies in my lap and cleans himself purring, looking up at me all soft and warm as though butter would not melt in his mouth. Then a bit later I hear the cat door swing again and he heads back out into the yard.

I wonder if I should get him a bell. All that annoying tinkling to maybe save the life of one native bird, maybe, at some point and to spare the lives of many non-native birds and the plague of mice and rats we have to endure that are the real target. I still decide against the bell.

Sometime later, when I am looking out the window of the lounge room, I see a multitude of feathers strewn up the side of the house. I’m guessing that was once the pigeon. Euw!

Later in the day, we see the pigeon’s partner sitting along on the fence.