what else.
oh yeah.
theres a cat that was literally on its last legs yesterday. collapsed in the cat man's yard. twitching now and then, neck contracted in pain every ten seconds or so. in that twinge of pain, i think he was also struggling to catch one of its last breaths. i couldnt tear myself away from watching it from the side window at the top of the steps. it was laying on its side in an odd looking position. flys swarming its emaciated body.

went over and actually talked to the cat man. fortunately his door was open already because of the heat, so he saw me and came over instead of me having to get any nearer to his stank-ass house (the inside of his house looks about as good as the outside, btw). anyway. i got the closest look at this man than any other time ive seen him chilling on his porch or going to and from his car. gray hair covered in a straight-billed hat (you know the kind). a giant bulbous nose, not really red like an alcoholic's, but just very round and large. he had a plain white shirt on that kinda pulled to the right. he has a rather prominent belly, but the collar of his shirt was exposing his collar bone. it didnt match with the belly. the area around the bone was sunken a couple inches. didnt match up... his eyes also seemed to somewhat protrude from their sockets. all and all, kind of disturbing.

so i told the man about his cat dying. ya know, in case he had some compassion and didnt want to see it die in the disrespectable, fly-ridden way he was dying. yet, all he told me was. "the cats pass on. its what they do."

brilliant.

so i persued a little.. maybe he didnt realize the gravity of the cats situation.
his response, "they're wild, theres nothing i can do about it."
you feed them. i'm sure you can come up with something. also, any disease that they might be carrying, i'm sure you've been exposed to 100-fold. but no.

so he continues by telling me that these cats have all been spayed and neutered. at this point, i realize that i'm not going to get through to this man. he's gone into his mode of defending his cats. i couldnt give a shit (well, maybe a small shit) if the cats are sterile, i'm just alerting you to the well-being of one of them.

so i let it be, and prior to my leave for work, the cat was still gasping for breaths every 10 seconds or so. a larger cat came around and sniffed it. after doing this, it seemed he alerted the other cats, as two more came around and surveyed the scene. aside from the initial discoverer, they kept their distance. eventually, they went back to whatever it is they do in that jungle of a backyard. shitting or sleeping is all i can think of.

oddly, the cat seemed to be out of breaths, motionless about 5 feet from our fence. this morning, he was a bit more northeast of the fence. dragged? nothing seemed to leave gnaw marks or anything. from examining it yesterday, poking it with a stick ellicited no response. i dont know how it would have moved those 3 or so more feet to finally die in the same position as before but on its other side.
maybe the old man went out to check out if it was really dead. diagnosis: yes.

poor scrawny-ass cat. its not like the rest arent treated well though. some disease must have worn that guy to death. .. a painful-looking death.
i guess i didnt mention the spasms and yelping.
poor fucker.