ROGUE - THE CAT

ROGUE - THE CAT

At this point of the year. A year that has had so much pain and heartache I just figure that yeah, of course another one of my cats will in fact not make it out of this year alive. Sure enough my cynical self was right. I try not to be so  cynical, yet here I am.

Rogue passed away today. He was a stray cat that was, to my best guess, was Helena's first son I found on the streets. It was amazing that he was alive for how long that he was. But the outside strays of the time, Guinness and Bastion took him in as one of their own little buddies. Guinness was his best friend and you couldn't see them apart. I was half way tempted to bring both Guinness and Rogue in to the building but Guinness would not stop spraying. I brought in Rogue and for a bit Guinness would be at the door talking to his little kitten buddy.  I would let Guinness in to play with him for a bit of time here and there but for the most part, Guinness didn't last long out there.

Rogue had new friends inside. Remy and Goldberg took to him very well, he would sleep in the middle between them and was the cutest little grey fluff that you could imagine. He was really social with any cat that I would rescue and foster, but people he wasn't too keen on - so trying to find him a home was a bit difficult for that very reason. He liked me enough but had his shyness about him.

When Helena gave birth to the liter of kittens inside the apartment building, he loved playing and pouncing on them as they were very easy targets. Stout the one who looked like Guinness the most was his favorite to pick off because he was slow and a much larger target.

Rogue was named Rogue because he liked Remy a lot and I was just going with an X-men theme, even though they were both male cats. I mean, it wasn't implication, but they were really close. That and his meow was so shrill and long that it really did sound like he was saying his own name a lot  "Rooooooooooogue".  He was a good little guy with the funniest looking kitten face. All grey like his mother Helena, though she really didn't like it much that he was inside along with her. I think her interest was to get rid of all her kittens at that time before she switched to being a loving mom.

Rogue grew up inside. I mean, he was always a pretty adventurous cat and always liked to hide in the shadows, something he could do very well. I would joke around that he looked like the agent of the nothing from the Never ending story. Gamork

Though, to be honest over the years he sort of stopped really being close to me and did his own thing. To the point where he sort of was scared of me when he was eating dry food and I suddenly just said his name and he'd look at me like with eyes of a deer in headlights. So yeah, I feel bad that he didn't get as much love as he should have from me. Whenever I would surprise pet him he'd freak out and not know what to do. As if there was anything to do but accept the scratches I was laying down for him, ya know. 

Rogue was a damn solid cat. I hope that he got the best life he could with me and that I did provide the best. It's tough out there I know for a fact he wouldn't have survived long, especially since Guinness wasn't out there for much longer after I brought Rogue in. So I guess I'll hold on to that and that this slinky cat who never fully trusted people got 10+ years of life to enjoy and a lot of companionship. But I would be lying to you if I didn't say that this month of a wave of pets dying off on me isn't taking its emotional toll on me and chipping away the bits and pieces of my humanity.

I ended up burying Rogue near Helena and even though he tortured kitten Indiana and Fred, Fred liked him a lot and so they'll be in the same plot of land which has become a disturbing make shift pet cemetery on city land.

R.I.P. Little Rogue