My father drove me in Portsmouth to a block of houses he owned which he was having demolished. One house was constructed of brick and had been almost completely torn down. A fellow standing inside the house was pounding off the bricks one by one with a hammer. Quite a few workers were involved in the project; they had trucks for hauling away the debris and they seemed to know what they were doing.
My father and I drove on to the Gay Street House, which was also being torn down. The central part of the House was, however, supposed to be left untouched until the last, so the furniture would be able to stay there. When we pulled up, however, I saw that the windows on the second floor of the central part of the House had been broken out. It looked as if the wreckers had already started on that part of the House also. I didn't see the workers working anywhere and commented about their absence to my father. He seemed to indicate that they were probably in the process of using some drugs at the moment, but would soon return to work.
I walked on into the central part of the House and there found the wreckers engaged in cleaning the carpet with carpet cleaning machines. Apparently they were planning to tear up the carpet and wanted it to be clean before they did so.
I walked into another room where my attention focused on a large pure black cat whose name I knew was Samson. Almost at the same time, I noticed two, small off-white doves in the room. Just as it occurred to me that the doves might be in danger with the cat in the room, the cat pounced upon one of them and snatched it in its mouth. I immediately ran to the cat and forced it to release the dove. The dove fluttered to the side; I couldn't tell for sure whether it had been badly injured.
I released the cat and almost instantly it again pounced on the same dove, this time practically swallowing it so that only a few feathers were still sticking out of the cat's mouth. Again I chased the cat down, this time with more difficulty, and finally forced it to disgorge the dove. But this time when the dove finally fell from the cat's mouth it looked as if it might have been seriously injured, although I couldn't tell for sure.
The cat slipped away from me and ran into the next room. Since the doves obviously wouldn't be safe in the House as long as the black cat was here, I decided the cat needed to be put outside. I chased the cat from room to room, up and down the stairs and throughout the House. But it was extremely agile and I couldn't seem to catch it.
I was also a bit concerned about grabbing the cat again, because it had very sharp teeth. But then I realized I had donned some work gloves and thought they would protect me. Finally I managed to corner the cat and grab it. It did try to bite me with its sharp, white teeth although it didn't seem to try to bite me hard. My gloves protected me. I picked the cat up and carried it to the back door. My father was just coming in; I explained about the doves, which I referred to as love doves, and asked if he minded if I put the cat outside. He didn't mind and I walked on out. There I encountered my mother and began explaining to her what had happened.
Copyright 2003 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
