We live on the fifth floor. Each floor, we have options of either climbing up, then cross the corridor or cross the corridor and then take the stairs as we live in the opposite corridor to the stairs. Two nights ago we chose to cross from the third floor.
It’s hard watching someone die. To see the last breath escaping and then realising that’s it. At that moment, you can see that they know it’s ending. They needn’t even say that loud because it really doesn’t matter. We are mostly the dumb ones who don’t realise it with hindsight. But they seem to know.
It was a cat. Our hostel has a number of cats and kittens living with cat lovers who feed them, which is clearly against the rules. At first, we thought it was sleeping. You know, just a cat taking a nap. But as we went closer to one of the unused stairs, we saw that it was struggling to move. Ar. started to cry almost immediately. The other two were holding her back as to not get any infection, in case it is sick. I was dumb folded. My mouth refuses to synchronise with the brain at times. Did the cat see us standing close? Could it see how sorry and helpless we were? Ar. poured some water into its mouth. We doubted if it was still alive. In that moment, it moved as if to reassure us and then went still. We waited for some time for it to move again, then retreated.
Those were the final two minutes of a cat’s life that I witnessed. We felt bad, but then we needn’t be. The pussy was fondled by many, fed generously and even had water poured into its mouth before its last breath. We choose to take that route that night when we had exactly five other ways to go and I’d carried my filled water bottle, which I always don’t.
It’s been two days since this happened and I am still not over it.
In own words 