Opening Schrodinger's Box

There is a thought experiment in quantum physics where a cat inside a box has a 50% chance of being alive, and until you open that box to confirm his condition, the cat is, theoretically, both alive and dead. Schrodinger’s cat, as the imaginary feline is known, has his fate sealed only when you open the box. Similarly, a missing cat may theoretically be both alive and dead in your mind until he’s been found - even if he’s never found - and while finding him will seal that fate for better or for worse, it is only in opening that box that the weight of that question can be removed from your mind.

And, so begins the true story of a real cat who became known as Schrodinger.

A few digital photos are what he was to me in the beginning…both real and imaginary, not yet introduced to me or my world. The photos depicted a big orange tabby tom cat with a fluffy tail and an asymmetrical white marking on his face. His temporary lodging was a garage on an acreage half an hour out of the city where a kind soul had taken him to offer him a chance at life off the streets and out of the cold. While this stray was wary of people, it was noted that he seemed cautiously eager to make friends, suggesting maybe he’d once had a life someone, somewhere before finding himself homeless. His rescuer could not keep him but worked on gaining his trust while providing him the necessities of life and looking for someone to take him. Somehow, she found herself in contact with the animal rescue where I volunteer and, consequently, in contact with me.

“How are we going to do this,” she asked me? We were several feet apart, an empty parking stall between us, donning masks and pondering how to navigate social restrictions to do a simple hand over. As I paused before answering her question, she glanced through the window into her Jeep and exclaimed, “Oh, no! He broke the carrier! We’ll never get him into another one”

“It’s okay, “I said, “I literally live on the other side of the block. We can just put him in my car and I’ll manage.” In truth, I was a little apprehensive. This was to be only my second foster cat ever, and already we had complications. I didn’t know if having the cat in my car out of a carrier was a good idea, but here we were, in the parking lot outside her workplace at the start of her workday, and the cat simply HAD to be dealt with right now.

She carefully opened the door to her jeep, coaxed the cat to her, and then scooped him into her arms, his fluffy tail curled in tight, protectively. He looked uncertain, even a little frightened. Since pandemic rules dictated that we keep our distance from one another, I suggested that she just put him quickly into my backseat once I was in the car. I settled into the driver’s seat and peered back over my shoulder, watching as she carefully lowered him in through the rear passenger side door that I had left ajar to make her task easier.

Suddenly the cat bolted! “Noooo,” she exclaimed, “I worked so hard with him!” We immediately began scouring the parking lot, looking between and under vehicles to see where he had gone. A passerby pointed us in the right direction, and right when it looked like she was going to get him back, he bolted again, across the street. We tracked him through the snow where we could see he had run between two buildings, but no luck. It was like he just disappeared. I had only been an animal foster for a few weeks, and my second foster pet was missing. If this wasn’t bad enough, the cat also had an infected injury on his tail that needed immediate vet attention, which is perhaps also why this woman had turned to a rescue society for assistance with him.

After that fruitless first search, I rushed home and posted about the missing cat all over social media using the photos I had been provided. I contacted the rescue society to report my plight and asked about some cat traps I had seen at their facility just the other day. I was given permission to use one, with strict instructions not to leave the trap unattended, as a cat could injure itself in a panicked attempt to break free.

With a trap, some cat food and a latte, I headed to where we had last seen him and found a sheltered spot in some bushes where he might feel safe approaching and where I had a clear view from my car. I sat sipping coffee while checking updates on my social media posts about the cat. It was heartening to see the posts shared dozens of times and I felt confident we’d find him soon. It was, thankfully, a mild December so at least we didn’t have severe cold to contend with, but we really wanted him found and seen by a vet. I figured he’d be getting hungry soon and hoped he’d smell the feast awaiting him inside the trap After hours of no sightings, I packed up my stakeout and headed home.

Another volunteer from the society messaged me asking if she could connect me with a friend of hers who had some experience successfully trapping cats. I welcomed the help and initiated contact. Around the same time, I received a message about a sighting about a block from where I had been staked out – very encouraging! I had the cat trap “expert” meet up with me in front of the home of the person who had contacted me about the sighting. We were briefed on where he had been seen and which direction he was seen running, and then we took a long walk up and down alleys looking for signs of where he may have been and where he might be hiding.

Meanwhile, I ingested everything she had to tell me about trapping cats. Once upon a time, it was her duty to trap the cats people used to dump near an animal shelter and she got pretty good at it. She had brought me a second trap and a smelly, fishy mixture that should be irresistible to a hungry feline on the lamb. She asked me how long I intended to commit to searching for the cat and I really had no idea. This was a philosophical dilemma I had yet to dive into, but wondered out loud when that point comes when you have to assume the cat is simply gone. After all, the area where he was seen was very near a wooded area where it was not uncommon to see coyotes. “You can’t give up on him,” she said to me, “you’ve made a commitment to care for him.” I suddenly felt the overwhelming weight of my responsibility and didn’t know how to respond. (She later contacted me to apologize for putting me under such pressure).

Suddenly this cat I had never properly met was a very heavy presence in my life. Not knowing how serious his tail injury was, he could be in danger of becoming very sick with infection. The weather could turn bitterly cold and he could freeze to death. He could get run over by a car. He could be killed by a coyote. He could starve. He was both present and absent in my life. He both was and wasn’t my foster cat. He was the cat in the box, subject to possible peril, and his outcome could go either way. That fate would not formally be sealed until he was finally found – until the box was opened. What would be waiting for me inside that box? I unofficially dubbed him “Schrodinger,” but kept that name to myself for the time being.

Both the woman who had reported seeing him and another person in the community agreed to monitor cat traps in their yards for a few hours at a time. It was impossible for me to always be monitoring traps so it was a relief to have help. I would set up traps and watch them when I could and would often see the woman who had first brought Schrodinger to me out looking for him, too. I always tried to speak optimistically when I saw her, but as days passed with no new sightings, I began to worry. I had made some fliers with his photo and continued to update and monitor posts on social media but discouragement was setting in. The ever-present weight of the cat who was and wasn’t my foster animal was heavy and exhausting.

One day, there was a comment on one of my posts that he had been found. What did they mean? Did they think I had found him? Did someone else report finding him? With my hope reigniting, I searched for clarification and was finally disappointed to discover that it was another orange tabby who had been found. The disappointment hit me in such a way that I just shut down. It had been well over a week since any sightings had been reported and I was so discouraged. I felt powerless to the situation I was in and as I pondered what to do, I was haunted by the words that had been said to me: “You can’t give up on him.” Though part of me believed he was gone, I vowed then not to give up. I just needed to turn it all off for a day or so.

The ping on my phone came so out of the blue and there he was on my screen. Someone who had remembered seeing my posts tracked me down and sent a picture of the hungry cat on her front steps that very moment. I wasted no time hopping in my car and before I drove off, I forwarded the photo to the woman who had first tried to bring Schrodinger to me. “That’s him,” she replied. I punched the address into my phone and off I went. He was way on the other side of town from where he’d last been seen…no wonder, there were no more sightings there. Siri had me almost there and then suddenly she wasn’t talking to me anymore. I pulled over to check the map and realized my phone was at 1%. In my rush and excitement, I’d forgotten to check the battery life on my phone before I left. I knew I was almost there, so committed the address to memory and plugged in my phone to charge, but it was too late and it shut down. I left it charging and set about finding the address the old-fashioned way.

Finally, I arrived, and sure enough, there he was sitting next to her on the front steps. She said a few people in the town house complex reported seeing him around and they’d all been feeding him. I was so relieved to have finally found him after close to 2 weeks. I approached cautiously and he let me pet him. I returned to the car to grab the carrier and attempted to place him inside when he suddenly struggled free, piercing my knuckle joint with his claw as he did. I flashed back to when he had broken the carrier when he had first been brought to me, when I was warned he would not comply to being placed in one again, and I knew I had made a terrible mistake.

I was suddenly very aware that I didn’t know what I was doing and though my finger throbbed, I felt worse for the cat than me. He must have been very afraid to feel the need to need to bolt like that again. We tried approaching him under a deck where he was hiding, but he would not let me come near. I was, now, the enemy, out to get him and there was no way he would trust me now. I cried as I drove home, and the throbbing of my knuckle combined with my thoughts of how wrongly I’d handled the situation made for a sleepless night.

The next day, I returned to the town house complex and set up surveillance again near where I thought Schrodinger might be. The woman who had given me the crash course on trapping cats had told me to take note of which direction the cat bolted when escaping because he was probably instinctively heading toward where he felt safe – where he liked to hide. I used that advice in choosing where to set up the traps but came up dry.

The next day I was contacted by another person in the same town house complex who said that the cat had been on her back deck several times and she was willing to have a trap set there. I arrived to set up the trap, and much to our surprise, he came to inspect as we watched from only a few feet away. He entered the trap, which I had draped in a fuzzy blanket to make it seem cozy and inviting, as we watched in anticipation. After pausing inside the trap momentarily, he suddenly backed out without activating it and bolted. When I checked, the food had not been touched. It was like he knew it was a trap. It made me wonder if he’d been trapped before.

Now I had to rethink my plan. The wind was picking up and the mild weather that had been in our favour so far was quickly being replaced with a mind-numbing chill. I knew I had to catch him NOW before it got even colder, as the forecast predicted, and I found myself retreating to the warmth of my car to ponder my options, where it wasn’t too cold to think. I realized my husband was just finishing up work and phoned him to meet me – I thought that maybe the cat would respond better to a fresh face than one he’d already decided was out to get him.

I had my husband approach him with some food and a blanket to quickly wrap around him when the opportunity presented itself. Schrodinger cautiously approached as my husband calmly encouraged him, while trying to earn his trust. I had a slow, gentle capture in mind, but the intense chill of the wind, even stronger now than when I’d first arrived, seemed to add a sense of urgency to the situation, and before I knew what was happening, my husband was already scooping Schrodinger up into the blanket. Schrodinger protested fiercely and I heard husband cry out in pain, yet he refused to let go. This was not at all what I had in mind, but here we were and I couldn’t let Schrodinger get away yet again. I pulled a cat carrier out of the car and we managed to get him inside. Finally, we’d opened the box (only to place him in another box), and Schrodinger was alive, but this story isn’t over yet.

As we drove home, I could see my husband was in considerable pain and when we could finally inspect the damage, we found that on top of considerable scratches, Schrodinger had managed to bite him through thick leather gloves. The bite was through and through on the meaty part of his hand at the base of his thumb. A tetanus shot and an antibiotic prescription later, we were monitoring a very afraid cat who had wedged himself behind some items in the back of a clothes closet. We left food and water close to him and gave him space.

He needed to remain in quarantine for 2 weeks to ensure he didn’t have any illnesses to pass onto our existing foster who was about to become a foster fail (she and my son had bonded strongly and instantly, so we just couldn’t let her go). During that time, he was neutered and immunized, and his injured tail (which was not as bad as I expected) was treated. We would spend time with him in his room and much to our surprise, he rapidly went from being afraid, to sniffing our hands, to letting us pet him. It didn’t take him long at all for him to realize we were friends, not foes, and once he accepted it, it was like a switch was flicked and suddenly we had this easygoing, sweet and gentle foster cat who couldn’t get enough of belly rubs on his lambs-wool soft, curly belly.

By the time Schrodinger was out of quarantine, we were taking on our third foster cat, who also had to follow the two-week quarantine protocol. Our new foster, Carbon, would yowl at night. The poor guy was probably missing someone and Schrodinger would lay outside the door to the room where he was being kept and meow to him, sweetly. When Carbon emerged from quarantine, Schrodinger tried so hard to make friends, but this meek and mild black cat was intimidated by the 16 pounds of gregarious energy that wanted to play with him. Meanwhile, Chi Chi would try to intimidate poor Carbon, and Schrodinger would put himself peacefully between them. You see, Chi Chi had already learned that her intimidation games would not work on the massive orange tom cat, and when Schrodinger began acting as Carbons bodyguard, so to speak, Carbon took notice and soon a friendship ensued.

One day, I was sitting in an armchair next to the side table Schrodinger likes to lay on while looking out the living room window. I was engrossed in something on my laptop until I became aware of the feeling that someone was watching me. Looking up, I caught Schrodinger staring lovingly...even adoringly...at me and suddenly things started to become clear.

I considered all I went through trying to find him before I even knew him at all, and now I looked at him and realized there was something special and mutual between us. Also, though he had wounded my husband, the two were now quite enamoured with one another, like none of that other stuff had ever happened. I thought about how he wouldn’t engage with Chi Chi when she wanted to fight and how he peacefully intervened when she tried to antagonize Carbon. I thought about how he laid outside the door comforting Carbon when he was in quarantine and then slowly charmed him into friendship once they were free to interact.

I felt so proud of the sweet boy he turned out to be and realized how wonderful it would be to have this guy around to help future foster cats settle in. It suddenly felt serendipitous that he'd come (reluctantly) into our lives and it was such a joy having him around. I looked into those "Disney eyes," as my husband calls them, and realized, with a sigh and a little ache in my heart, that I loved this cat. No, I REALLY love this cat.

There once was a cat in a box, who was both real and unreal, both dead and alive, and both my foster cat and not my foster cat. We found and opened the box that rendered him alive, but the box within that box that actually could make him real…the box where he was still both my foster cat and not my foster cat had remained overlooked, forgotten and, consequently, unopened. To open that box would be to really see him, and to really see him would be to realize he is far too special let go. To open that box was to seal the fate that brought him into our lives, where he belonged.

We opened that box, and never looked back.