Storytime Sunday: The Cat's Stuck in the Wall

Note: This is an abridged telling of the story on account of not getting my poop in a group to write the story in a timely manner. This is what you get.

"Mew! Mew!" Almost rhythmic mews, distant and muffled. Edie's missing, and now there's muffled kitten meowing no one can pinpoint. We listen from the basement - she's at the front of the house and somewhere above. We listen in the front room - she's near the front of the house and somewhere below. We can hear her meowing beneath us.

"Mew! Mew!"

Hours of searching have passed to no avail. She's going to die of dehydration in there, we have to get her out! I can hear where she is, under the front door. I tear up the flooring in front of the door only to find hardwood underneath. I grab a claw hammer and maniacally attack the hardwood with it, ripping up chunks.

That goes nowhere, it just spews shredded wood all over the carpet and takes a divot out of the floor. Someone eventually gets the idea to look inside the walls. We only find a couple ways in, through the upstairs balcony. The openings are tight and the roof inside looks cramped. But we can hear the cat clearly inside. Yep, the cat's definitely stuck in the wall.

"Mew! Mew!"

Someone needs to climb in there and look. This looks like a job for Stuporman! (That was my inebriated alter-ego at the time. Stuporman - fighter of sobriety, defender of awesome.) I dive in head first and wriggle through the opening. I climb onto a half inch layer of soft dust and sediment and turn around, coating myself in it. With a flashlight, squeezing my head under the floor, and eventually a mirror, I solidly confirm Edie's location: at the bottom of a shaft.

So here's what we knew: Edie got into the wall through a vent opening. She wandered around exploring until she came to a shaft, like a hollow column. Then she fell down it and got trapped. This didn't get us any closer to getting her out.

I tried lowering a shoebox wrapped in a sheet, tied to another sheet, with food in it down the shaft. It just landed on her, if it even made it all the way down. We looked and looked with mirrors. I started chain smoking inside the wall.

"Mew! Mew!"

Someone gave us the brilliant suggestion to call the fire department. They laughed at us. We called the humane society. They don't do that. Someone posted a frantic message to the all-campus listserv, asking for any help.

Two guys came by to help. They tried various approaches. I continued to lay in the wall, smoking. Dust was sticking to my finger and caking to my lips. Someone passed me a pipe. I hit it and resumed smoking. Still in the wall.

"Mew! Mew!"

I noticed the open space between the upstairs floor and the downstairs ceiling. The notion of rats running through there entered my head. Is there rat shit in here? Wait... oh fuck. Someone pointed out to me: the dust. I was laying in rat shit and probably eating hanta virus as I smoked. I spat gritty bits of dust out of my mouth. Then I shrugged and pulled out another cigarette.

I spent late into the night inside this wall, increasingly tired, high, and, later on, drunk. I eventually crashed and came back the next day to climb inside the wall and chain smoke for a few hours, listening to the cat's mews to make sure she was still alive.

"Mew! Mew!"

Four hours in the wall today got me through a half pack of cigarettes and not much else. Still laying in rat shit, but I don't care, this is my spot! By this point I kinda feel like just lounging inside the wall from now on.

It all just kind of runs together at this point. I spent literally all the time I was at that house inside the wall chain smoking. There was no point to being in the wall, I didn't even pretend to be there for the cat other than to 'listen to make sure it's still alive'. Why did I want to lay there in rat shit regolith and chain smoke without a view of anything or any TV/computer/whatever? I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The next day, while I was gone, Clark arrived. With a jigsaw and a bottle of whiskey in hand. "Where's the cat," I imagine he asked with a cackle after kicking open the door. He cut a square out of the balcony floor directly above the shaft. As soon as it was open and the cat could see it was a way out, she climbed out on her own. Just stuck her claws out and parkoured up the sides of the shaft. Stupid cat.