The cat in the woods

He is a gray and white male cat, his fur has lost its porcelain vase-like shine, because he is no longer young, and loves to sleep in a warm place, the fur is covered with ash and soot. Every day, the old peasant woman with toothless mouth for it to chew bread to prepare meals, but also to pour him two bowls of hot milk. As soon as he saw the milk, he meowed with satisfaction, just like the old grandfather of the family got a good strong tobacco. However, for a few days, his behavior made the grandmother feel sad. He barely licked the hot milk, and raised his long tail in a demonstration, almost as if he was deliberately making a scene. What it was thinking, I'm afraid, will never be known. When spring came, it simply went into the forest and never returned to the grandmother.

In spring, the forest is not worried about the lack of prey, such as silly, chirping birds, squeaking groundhogs and rabbit pups... It eats fresh meat every day, and its body is nourished, and its filthy fur is shining again. Since then, he has made the forest his home. If it sometimes encounters people, it quickly flees and raises its long tail with an air of contempt; or it flies up a tree and stares at them like a genie, its round eyes shining green. He used to live meekly, lazily and filthy, waiting for a handout - a harmful handout... These days are fast becoming a sleepy past. Now he is a forest cat, a free, independent wildcat. It walks, catches its prey, and lives happily. But the summer in the north is not long. Cold and darkness follow, autumn rains continue, and the dead leaves wither. The forest becomes desolate. Countless migratory birds fly away - these happy, well-organized migratory birds who always want to live in eternal summer. But the cat in the woods has no wings... A flock of very disillusioned tits squeaks in panic; the woodpecker pecks at the bark with a low rattling sound - the "woodsman" who searches for hidden insects in the wet forest while heavily shaking its wings. The surviving young rabbits have grown up and become strong, resourceful and agile. In addition to this, the panting of the horses and deer as they flee amidst the barking of dogs and the sound of ""gunshots"" can be heard in the forest. Man is not a benefactor, but a predator of a small amount of prey. The cats that call the forest home would be lurking silently if not for their resourcefulness, caution and silence. Now, too, it would have been mercilessly hunted by man. In any case, it can still get a hot piece of meat. The freshly acquired prey is caught with its own sharp claws. In the path of the forest cat there is always a small life dedicated to it, so that it can live on... But winter has fully arrived.

The cold froze the earth, followed by heavy snow, which made it very difficult to walk in the snow and left nasty tracks. The forest became even more desolate. The flocks of finches had also disappeared, probably to seek help from people. The woodpeckers pecked dejectedly at the dried fruit - pine nuts. Grouse and pheasant doves are resourceful, fly, and can hide in the snow. Cats chewed and moved their jaws and stared at them indiscriminately, all in vain. Hunger and cold attacked the cat in the woods. But sometimes it always still gets a little bit of hot meat, so it can still live and endure. When he slept in the hay in the pasture and almost froze, the hot stool by the fire with soot and the hot milk with its aroma came to his mind. Then he gave a resentful wail and stretched his frozen paws. The forest is particularly desolate and grim in winter, and in the middle of winter, staying in the forest is simply life-threatening. Only people, the former owners of the cats in the forest, can move freely in the forest. In the bitterly cold weather, the dull sound of axes and other noises came from afar, followed by the terrible rumble of trees falling to the ground. Man, this powerful being, seemed to have come to destroy the cat's vast home... He raised his tail in anger and shot a flash from his eyes. It took a long time to find a quieter part of the world to make its new home. In this country, with its vast forests... the cat was lucky to be able to extinguish a spark of life from time to time to prolong its life. But the interval between meals grew longer and longer, and the cold attacked it relentlessly. In the endless snow of winter, there is no sign of life, not even a groundhog; but in the woods the cat has God's gift. To escape the rumble of falling trees, it crossed a frozen forest stream, where the gurgling water beneath the ice seemed to herald good fortune. There was also a pile of hay with a stream of hot air coming out of it, and the cat immediately crawled to the ground and took up a hunting stance. It turned out that two animals that had been bred to become adventurers in the forest for the winter, when, by chance, they met here. In the haystack lived a male goat. In the summer, the same idea that the cat had had in the spring came into the head of this goat. He left the herd and went far, far away, settling in the forest, fortunately avoiding potential dangers and solving a series of problems brought about by winter. It began by nibbling at the straw by the creek and eventually gnawed its way out of a burrow, forming a unique shelter from the cold in the straw. It is in a much better position than the cat, with the four walls of the burrow available for consumption and snow for thirst. The hay cave is quite warm, and its fleece grows thick as it escapes manual shearing. But now an unwanted guest is approaching its peaceful abode. The cat has figured out the mystery of the bubbling haystack, and its teeth are gritting and its tail is fiercely erect.

Prey! ⋯⋯...

Satisfied with catching mice, it now had no qualms about taking out the big guy. He moved forward slowly. The goat had spotted it through the hole and wagged its head and horns and kicked its hooves as a warning. The cat carefully crept forward, bowed up, suddenly lunged and bit the goat's neck. But it only bit into a mouth full of fleece, and its attacking claws sank into the dense fleece as well. However, the power of the goat to lunge forward and hit the neck is of no use here. It simply threw the offender against the wall of its dwelling. Then there was a terrible and prolonged struggle for life and death. Wool and hay flew everywhere. The goats bleated and wailed; the cat of the woods showed a vicious look of murder. Within moments, its sharp teeth and claws gradually worked their way through the layers of fleece.

The struggle ended with the goat's dying struggle. It lay dying and twitching on the floor of the hay cave. But the warm blood gave new strength to the exhausted cat. It purred triumphantly and watched its prey die. For the little creature that preys on mice, this is a great reward! The days of daily meat-eating began. The hay hole soon froze over, as the owner of the hole had died and the body had frozen hard and was getting smaller and smaller. For the cat, the cold and the frozen meat didn't matter, as long as it didn't starve, anything would do... so it lived, napped and slept beside its prey. The rich nutrition makes it strong enough to withstand the cold. And the weather seemed to get milder, with thick clouds sprinkled with snow and the whole world drowned in it. The forest cat fell asleep beside its prey, and the forest whistled under the pressure of a heavy snowstorm. Suddenly the sound of something heavy falling down woke the cat up. Something had fallen in the snow and was approaching its shelter, and it was a big prey... The cat, who was napping, was immediately refreshed and ready to jump. Its eyes glowed yellow-green. The visitor is at the door, a large bird - a hawk, a hawk that preys on hens. It shares the same worries of life as the cat: long winters, lack of food, starvation.

In order to escape its plight, it left the far north for a long flight. Just now, it was hit by a snowstorm and fell down in a daze. The creature, looking for a new living space, was exhausted. Next to the haystack there seemed to be a shelter a hole to crawl into for a rest, but the hole already had its owner and its big prey. The thing with glowing eyes immediately swooped up like a ball. The hawk retaliated in time with wings and terrifyingly sharp talons, fighting and delivering prey to its door... Fortunately, its talons firmly grasped the pouncing cat's head and thrust it in, but the cat turned over and, with its back to the ground, desperately tore at the hawk's chest and wings with its sharp talons. The two fighters rolled into a ball in the blizzard. Sometimes, this hissing mass is carried up into the sky by the wings of the eagle. Drops of blood were scattered on the snow, as the sharp claws did not relax for a moment to play their role. The eagle met its doom, but it held on to the cat's head for dear life. After all, it was a prey! How much better it would have been to catch it by the neck from the air... It kept pecking at its opponent with its powerful beak, practically using its last strength.

The cat's eyes were finally pecked out, and the force of the cat's paws weakened, and then all relaxed, like a bow on a loose string. It lay dead in the snow; the hawk looked at it, turned around, and pulled down a shit to show its contempt. But this was the last conscious movement of the hawk, it was bleeding, one of its wings had been torn, and it was all but immobile. For it, this was the last fight... and it began to crawl painfully through the snow, in strange, undirected little circles. It crawled and crawled, seemingly desperate to get somewhere, but with increasing difficulty and slowness. It finally stopped, gradually covered by the falling snowflakes. At first, the snowflakes melted into droplets on the eagle's tan feathers, but then they began to pile up, leaving a small mound of snow in its resting place. The cat did the same. But it lay sheltered by the haystack, its hollowed-out eye sockets still looking out at the world, its mouth grinning, revealing the sharp teeth of a fight... There was its huge prey in the hay, the half-torn carcass of a goat, and snowflakes occasionally drifting onto the goat's fleece. At this point, the frozen forest cats seem to shrug their shoulders and laugh with glee...

As the blizzard began to die down, a howl of wild animals echoed over the moor. In a hidden part of the forest, the fox raises its chewing mouth... If the fire of life is extinguished in an object, it is only to nourish the life that has not yet been extinguished. And so the cycle goes on and on.