TERRORISM

ter·ror·ism n
Violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, carried out for political purposes

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

I'm not sure if my cat has any political connections or affiliations to the local Taliban, IRA or Al Fattah but there is a possibility that she has connections with local blow-up artists and assassins. If she is politically motivated, it has not yet surfaced, but that she has an agenda is evident.
She is my second acquisition, as a playmate for my male cat-friend who I thought in my deluded ways needed one. So I went to the local adopt a pet (more appropriate it should be called the "adopt a terrorist" shop) and there was this innocent looking, big-eyed, purring and face-licking hairball, which apparently could not make up it's mind if it was going to be white, red, grey or tabby and instead became all. I got suckered into her charms and in my trusting ways paid the adoption fee and proceeded to take her to her new home and introduce her to my cat-friend Csiko who I hoped would be not too harsh with her. He wasn't, she was.
I should have smelled a rat when I got this fuzzy thing on my shoulder and rode the bicycle toward the marina and she put those daggers that were concealed in satin paws in my back when a cab roared past us. The friendly doctor who surgically removed the kitten from my back wondered if anyone had ever given birth to a kitten before through the ribs. He heard about a story that once a woman was born from the ribs of a guy named Adam but a cat was never mentioned before or after for that matter. This was a first for both of us.
On the boat things soon became clear. Csiko was no longer allowed to reside on the boat. There was a hissing and growling going on that would scare the wits out of a tiger and Csiko reluctantly ceded ground to all teeth and claws in front of a huge sound wave that followed. It didn't matter much that Csiko was first on the boat, he had all the privileges that one earned over time, this assault was not he had anticipated and he did not return to the boat and demonstrated his disapproval in a way only cats know how.
Whenever I called him before the arrival of Miss Kitty, he answered, when he returned from a night on the town, he announced his return with a MIAU loud enough to wake me from deep slumber and snuggled into my arm and pawing my face with soft caress. Now he did not even come home. When I saw him ashore, he just looked and then turned away like a scorned woman, his tail twitched and he sauntered into the thicket without another glance in my direction.
Guilt flooded my heart and I contemplated to return the kitten to the shop and make up with Csiko by buying the juiciest fish I could find and let him gorge himself. Then I thought if I just give them more time, they would get over their dislike and all would be well. Oh, female cats easily foil the hopes of man. Csiko knew that this kitten was set in her ways. She was born to be a single-minded terrorist and like the bad joke of what the difference between a woman with PMS and a terrorist is, this kitten proved that you couldn’t always negotiate with a terrorist.
No gentle handling was possible with this kitten. She was always in attack mode and when I broke with brute force through her claws and teeth, her hissing and growling was such that I was afraid to let her go out of my grasp lest she ripped me into shreds.
Csiko the wise had better sense to stay away and let me take the brunt of her attacks. On the rare occasions when he showed up near the boat, and I suspect he just wanted to check up on the situation to see if I was still alive, he was looking from the cover of the thicket toward the boat and like a ninja vanished into thin air. How wrong I was thinking that in a few days the situation would resolve into a happy after. Month later Csiko finally condescended to visit when he figured this snarling, hissing ball of fur was sleeping and as soon as he jumped onto the boat, I eased the lines and moved a bit forward to get away from the wall where he could retreat. As long as I was around to take the first line of defence against the kitten, he was able to have a few bites of the food that was there and then he took off again. But with the boat now farther from the wall, that escape route was gone and he had to find sanctuary somewhere else. Alas, on a boat you can run but you cannot hide and he found out very fast how true that is. The gel coat on my deck was worn thin from their chasing around and once I got of the boat to have some peace, Csiko jumped into the water and swam to the docks to escape. If you know cats, you will understand how desperate he must have felt.
One day a heard a splash near the boat and thinking it could have been a large fish jumping, ignored it but then I heard this wailing that was like a sound out of a horror movie. I try to write the sound but it will not do justice. YOAUW! I jumped up from the table and into the cockpit to see a wet Pussy with eyes as big as dishes floating at the transom of the boat frantically trying to come back into the boat. (This kitten is clever enough not to wear a dynamite vest) Miss Kitty, the female terrorist.
For a moment I thought, (shame on me) this is the answer to my prayers and the solution to all of our problems but my humanitarian side broke surface and I put my arm into the water which the kitten grabbed in an instant and scaled like a monkey up onto my head and then jumped off onto the deck. Cussing and as yaouing like the kitten, spurting blood like a fountain, I grabbed the towel hanging on the lifelines as if placed there just for this purpose, I tried to stop the bleeding before I died without first had a chance to kill the cat. Miss Kitty sensing her doom elected the only strategy that works, looked at me, her eyes still big and round like saucer cups and let out a wailing sound of a kind that made me forget everything about murder. Bleeding to death disregarding I picked up this soaking fur ball and wrapped her into the blanket to dry her off. I’m not sure if fear made her shiver or the water but she was the most vibrating thing a man can think of.
As I dried her, she pushed her head into my armpit as if she wanted to take cover from a mad bulldog. My heart melted and compassion overpowered my reasons to kill this mortal enemy. Oh, what a sweet kitten this is was all I could think. Poor thing, so scared and cold and salty. Ah! Salty! She needs a warm rinse to get her to warm up and get rid of the salt. Into the head with her. Her we go, turn on the water and give her a nice warm shower. But oh, what a mistake that was. Never in my life did I see anything so fast, accurate and powerful escaping the head compartment through a porthole. She must have had the best Ninja warrior training that has been developed since the Shogun in Japan.
In any case, this kitten has not forgiven me that treacherous attempt on her salty cat status even now. Whenever I have a shower and enter the salon to sit down, she attacks me and bites what is available on me. The bites are no longer as vicious as they were in the first few weeks and that may be because I had to restrain her a few times with considerable force, but she still gets me when I’m lowering my guard. She also has developed a technique to get me when I’m sleeping and bites my arm, chest or any other part of my body that she can get at even if she has to pull the blanket off me.

Recently we got into a truce that seems to hold and I encounter her on my pillow or even snuggling up for a few minutes and I have gotten a little hard rubber ball that she is very fond of. It bounces and she chases it all over the boat, hides it in my berth and has a blast when I toss it for her and when she had her way with it, she brings it to me to show her what else to do with it. Still, I can’t get rid of the suspicion that she just wants to put me at ease before striking me down. So far so good.
Often when I return to the boat she greets me on deck and rub herself on me as if I was her favourite toy, which may very well be the case.
I wonder when she will try to recruit me for her hidden agenda. So far she has not demanded anything worst than to catch a fish, kill it and let her eat it but I fear in the near future she will tell me to take them hostage and exchange them for imprisoned cats around the world who have been impounded for obscure reasons. I believe I could be talked into that and hope it will not escalate into an all-out war against all human kind with slogans like “death to all humans”. My hope is that she is more humane than humans. And what is a little suffering among friends?
Now as time has gone by, this kitten has grown into an almost adult cat and there is a reconciliation process happening between Csiko and her that also includes my First Mate and me and we have her visiting us in bed where she is plotting her sinister plans to overthrow the human race.
Irma has a fondness of her, it must be the female aspect in her, and they spend hours together that is almost eerie was it not for the genuine affection of my mate and her authentic being to me. I can only presume that it is me who get close to agree with the ideologies these two females represent that allows me to live in relative peace.
Albeit, we are living in a harmonious and symbiotic space and have learned to live with each other and if we can do that, there may be hope that others in the world come to learn from us animals and create a better world where all can live in peace and love without the need to convert the other or enforce our views onto others. If we all can learn to respect our differences and see them as flowers of all kinds and not want to create a “Read my Two-lips” only world, we could at least have a better understanding of others even if we do not agree with their ways. We can rest in peace knowing that they will not agree with ours if they don’t want to. By allowing ourselves to observe and to be observed, we may discover the other has ways to see the world in ways other than we do and it may even be better than we thought. We may call this attitude open-ness to change.
It is amazing how the statement: “I know” has closed our minds and created rigidity in our being that is stagnant and fouls our being.
It is time to re-think our ways to think and act because it has brought us to the brink of our self-destruction and if we want to survive as species, we must re-create our ways. Thinking for us would be one good step in the right direction. Sharing the world with another and respecting our differences a second and to add some spice to it: Let’s work on our sense of humour about our selves. Taking our achievements and us too serious creates a sense of self-importance that has made life all over this planet a zest pool of greed, disrespect and a struggle for supremacy over others. Focusing on things that makes us and everybody around us feel good can change it.