- Vol. 10
- Chapter 08
Dougal
A mongrel type of doubtful pedigree,
he ruled the road with some civility,
switching from house to house with great agility.
He climbed through upstairs windows,
and slept at times
in other people’s beds.
His mother, Slipper, had a divided face,
one side dark, the other ginger.
It was this ginger ancestry that he inherited.
While his ginger head showed some nobility,
his wondrous tail told a different story,
betrayed by a tiny patch of white.
He loved to lock himself in rooms,
turning the keys with some dexterity.
He couldn’t exit with the same finesse.
His favourite thing was drinking
from the dripping bath taps,
turned on slowly by his devoted humans.
His life was one long list of accidents
and frequent visits to the vet.
He would shed a cloud of ginger hair
at the indignity.
Dougal
He left without a warning sign,
his ninth life lost,
still warm in death,
at the back door of his home.
He lies buried by the garden wall.
Overhead half-ginger cats still stalk today,
and surely, somewhere,
a raft of ginger hair still floats.