My many pets, past and present, have quirks and personalities that seem fascinating, if only to me.
I remember my Charlie, who came to us as a little ball of fur, lost in a field and found by me and my other cat, Jiggs, one evening at dusk. She was a strange creature who seemed not of this world.
Charlie was an orange tiger cat with a long bushy tail that curled right over her back to her head. So not only was her tail unusual but most orange tiger cats are male and she was a she. She was so ferocious. She would torment Jiggs constantly from the very beginning, attacking him over and over again. He would hiss and snarl and bat her so hard she would fly across the room, and she would be right back for more. He never hurt her though and they would next be cuddled up with each other and purring.
When she got big enough, she would go outside and come back in through my second story bedroom window ( it had a porch roof outside). When she came in, she would stagger and look around as if she was so disoriented from being outside and then suddenly inside. It was like she couldn't figure it out.
And she would study your face so intently, and then touch all the parts of it so gently with her paw, as if trying to understand this human face, so different from hers.
This gentleness was so at odds with her "play". You could not walk past her without her attacking your ankles with all her might, claws and teeth.
She was loving and gentle, ferocious as a tiger and alas, this led to her end on this earth. One day she challenged a passing car, attacking as fearlessly as she attacked us. The car won.
She is laid to rest with our other past pets in our backyard. I loved her a lot, dear thing.
