4am

It’s 4am. The cats are agitated, walking on me. I’m usually up an hour or two before this. I don’t actually wake up to feed the cats. I wake up because of my mind, thinking what the hell is going to be next? And there’s always something, it’s not unrealistic, I’m not just going crazy. My oldest cat is 17 and hyperthyroid. Medication, which I got by scamming an online doctor into prescribing it for me and then calculating the cat dose and cutting it up, only controls it partly. His metabolism is fast, so it’s good for him to eat often, and I got in the habit of feeding him since I’m up anyway. And then Connor started having trouble with his digestion and was losing weight so he joined the late night feeding. And then the others are just waiting for leftovers, to lick out an empty can, etc. The middle of the night is lonely, even surrounded by cats. I remember when I was not the only human in this bed, in this house. I turn on podcasts to try to drown it out, NPR. Yuki won’t eat. He’s been eating less and less for days, getting even skinnier. I open the chicken baby food, powerfully attractive to cats, but he only has a taste, maybe half a teaspoon. So I get a needle-less syringe, suck up some baby food, squirt it in. This is messy. It gets on his fur, on my hands, even my nightgown. I’m a vegetarian wearing chicken. Last time he stopped eating it was December. If cats don’t take in enough calories their liver gets damaged. He turned yellow, and I knew what was happening. I remembered years ago I took in a stray with the same problem and the vet told me what to do. You have to get the calories into them. I sat on my bathroom floor with that little black cat for hours, day after day, and he got better. So I squirted chicken into Yuki then too, during those dark December days, not convinced it was going to work, feeling like total crap for having chosen the work I do instead of work that our society rewards with money that can pay the vet. But it did help. The jaundice faded. Later on this morning, I will look through my cat supplies and see if I have any mirtazapine. Mirtazapine is an older atypical antidepressant in humans, ironically often helpful for insomnia. In cats, mirtazapine stimulates appetite. They make a transdermal version that you rub on the inside of the ear. Yuki’s lost weight, I will have to do the math to figure out the correct dose for the weight he is. Now I’m crying about Yuki. In the meantime, NPR news ends. This American Life comes on. They are reporting on a family from Gaza and their messages to each other. They start out planning beach trips and talking about watermelon and baking pastries and then they wind up being about bombs and starvation. Now I’m crying about Gaza. The sun comes up and with it, the birds. It’s another day.