Zoe Survives

I thought I was a goner. In fact, I thought many of us were goners, including some of you. I will explain, but first, a short introduction for those who may have missed my past musings. My name is Zoe the Fabulous Feline. I own—and I do mean own—a human named Emily. As sometimes happens, Emily plays a small part in this story. And now I will get to it. The story, that is.

I was on a new adventure. I had heard Emily talk about how much she loves “the beach.” How she loved the feeling of the sand between her toes, the sun on her face, and the cool water around her ankles. And, given how much I loved sunbathing in front of the deck doors, I figured I would love to have the whole experience (well, excluding the water around my ankles, of course). I knew we lived close to a beach, and I wanted to go, but I didn’t know how to get there. I did, however, know someone who knew how to get there. Bella.

First, I think I should tell you who Bella is. She’s my best friend. Bella is a doggie, and, like most doggies, she’s got a great sense of smell. Besides that, when her family spent last summer away, Bella lived on a beach; she’d told me all about it. So, I knew that Bella knew the scent of ocean air and could sniff her way to the beach near our home.

I made my way to Bella’s and asked her if she’d go with me to the beach. She barked that she was thrilled to have someplace to go, as she had been having a very boring day. And when I told her she had to lead the way, well, she was ecstatic. I think that made her feel important. So, off we went to feel the sand on our paws and the sun on our fur. And maybe see some cool waves. From a distance, naturally. Bella could frolic in those waves if she wanted to, but moi? No way! I would just watch, thank you very much.

Bella got us to the beach in no time. We ran toward the water’s edge, stopping short of the wet sand line. No wet sand for us. We wanted to lie on the warm, soft, dry sand and soak up the sun’s rays. We found a spot and settled in. It was so relaxing!

Suddenly, Bella shot up to a sitting position, her nose sniffing the air. She started to whimper and backed her butt up even farther away from the edge of the water. She began to bark just as I noticed that the ocean had suddenly and completely pulled away from the shoreline. I mean, all the water just went—swoosh!—right out toward the horizon. Suddenly, there were what seemed like hundreds of feet of sand between us and the water. And that scared the hell out of me.

It scared me because Emily and I had seen a movie on TV where the ocean behaved that way, pulling away suddenly and significantly from the shoreline; as the ocean retreated to the horizon, Emily yelled at the TV, “Oh no! Those poor people!” I saw on the screen what followed that strange movement of the sea . . . a wall of water coming ashore. A tidal wave . . . a tsunami. A very fearful thing. Even its name was scary. And it was about to happen now. We were all in danger!

“Run, Bella, run! Run for your life!” I started to run away, too, but it wasn’t long before something that felt like raindrops landed on my back. At the same time, people jumped up off their beach towels and off their chairs and were yelling. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, they sounded so far away, but I knew what was scaring them. I was frightened, too, and started to cry loudly. “Bella? Bella! Where are you?”

“Woof! Woof!” Bella’s barking sounded as nervous as I felt. She also sounded far away. As I turned around to look for her, I saw a wall of water coming toward us. I hissed and spit and meowed as loudly as I could as I started to run again.

I heard another “woof, woof,” but now it sounded a little different, a little like Emily. Then, suddenly, I heard “Zoe? Zoe! What is the matter? Zoe!” At the same time I heard Emily’s voice—soft at first, then growing more loud with concern—I felt her hand gently stroking my back. My wet back. I squirmed under her touch and continued crying.

“Shhhh, Zoe, it’s alright. Shhhhh. Everything’s fine, Zoe. You must be having a bad dream.”

At that, my eyes flew open. I was in my own home, splayed out by my feeding pad, my water bowl lying on its side, behind me. Apparently, when I had pawed at the water in the bowl, as I always do before taking a drink, I must have come down on one edge of the bowl—hard enough to have flipped it like a tiddly wink. The “tiddly wink” must have hit me on the head and knocked me out.

There was no Bella in sight. There was no tsunami in sight either, thank Bastet. (You might say “thank God” … I say, “thank Bastet” because she is, after all, the Egyptian goddess of cats.)

Emily was right—for once. I had been having a bad dream. The memory of this nightmare will eventually fade away, and Bella and I live on to have other adventures.

But, not at the beach.

Zoe & Emily both live HERE

Zoe’s Facebook Page is HERE

Emily’s Facebook Page is HERE

Emily’s Sunrise Editing Services

NOTE:

You can catch up with any Zoe the Cat Posts you may have missed, by any of the following three means:

Clicking on the Zoe the Cat tag at the bottom of her posts

The Categories Cloud in the right column and clicking on Zoe the Cat

Typing Zoe into the Search box top right of blog and Enter or Return