Stella.

{Stella, in the spring of last year.}

Sometime Friday evening, my parents' cat little Stella was hit by a car. Adjacent from their house they found her by the side of the road, near to a lamppost, mewing in pain. Alive but badly injured, Stella has spent the weekend at the local veterinary clinic in the company of other injured animals being treated: a forlorn whippet with a fever, a cat who took an unfortunate tumble from a great height, and two dogs also injured on the road thanks to the carelessness of motorists.

It is more than likely she will lose an eye (for the moment her right eye is stitched up to prevent it from drying out) and her upper jaw needs wiring.

She will pull through and when she does she shall have the company of another one-eyed cat who resides several doors down from my parents' place. It shall be a street near to the ocean, with two one-eyed felines (that I know of) in residence. Betty and Stella, should they become friends (in my heart I know this to be unlikely), would form quite the duo. Between the two they shall have a left and right eye to afford them complete vision. This is a comforting thought and I think of it when I need to push from my mind the visual of my Mum finding her Stella by the roadside with her eye out of its socket and unable to stand.


{An aardvark tentatively crosses Lake Louise for seven years good luck. (Please, click to see a little larger.)}