Missing

It's been a week now. Exactly a week since I came down the stairs in the morning and went into our living room. There I was greeted by Canelle, who way lying in her armchair by the window. But hers were the only purrs I heard. The sofa was empty. This immediately alarmed me a bit because every morning Thomas used to sleep there and everytime I entered he would raise his cute little head and ask for a cuddle. But no Thomas that morning. Well, cats have a mind of their own and he's been out partying for over a day before. Yet, I had a feeling that this time it was different. I instinctively knew that something was wrong. The day went by. Every now and then Christine and I would call his name in the vicinity of his usual hang-outs. Thomas is the biggest talker of all cats I've already known and normally you'd immediately hear his reply in his unique suqeeks and purrs and little meows. That day, however, the replies never came. A night went by and Christine and I almost didn't sleep. The next morning I went down, desperately hoping to find him in his sofa as always. Alas, again he wasn't there. Christine and I searched day and night in all of the fields and woods in the area, going far beyond the limits where our cats would usually go. We looked by the road, looking for signs of an accident with a car. We looked into every little bush, hoping to find him hiding, frightened by something. But we found nothing. 

At that point, we started hypothesising about what could have happened. Could it have been a fox? Very unlikely. A fox must be pretty desperate trying to attack an adult cat, and even if it did manage to kill one, a cat would never be killed without putting up a hell of fight and making a lot of noise. In fact about a year ago Christine and I were sitting in front of the telly when we suddenly heard the most frightning sound you could imagine. And when I went out I saw Thomas fighting with a fox indeed, until I chased it away. Above all, cats are the most excellent climbers (remember my post "Thomas the mountaineer", October 2010) and will usually escape from any attack from a fox or wild dog unharmed. Then, we were thinking about cat's season. Around this time of the year male cats will go out on a trip, looking for the ladies. But Thomas has been spared so also this theory seems very unlikely, meaning that he would not likely disappear for a week and go that far that he wouldn't hear our cries anymore. Another frightning theory is the one of the hunters putting traps or venom. Also truffle seekers dear to spread venom in order to kill the dogs of hunters - the two can't stand the sight of eachother. But also this sounds pretty unlikely because in that case we should have found him, or at least traces of him. And who would put a trap late in the evening and return very early the next morning in order to see if it caught anything? Well... I don't know, it sounds very far fetched. Then there is the car accident. But again no trace and none of the vets have seen him. Or perhaps someone realised that Thomas has a pedigree, caught him and kept him or tried to sell him? Good luck! Thomas is extremely shy of strangers and only comes to Christine and I. Whenever we have guests he's the first to disappear and will only return after they have gone. And it must have happened during the night because the evening before we still saw him. I've checked on eBay and all of the Italian announcement websites, but no Thomas. In any case, he's been chipped and all of the vets have his number. 

And now... it's been a week. My little buddy has gone, god knows whereto. Because that's who he is... my little buddy. My very best friend. Always well-humoured, always greeting me or wanting to be with me, with his "windscreen-wiper" tail... Thomas... I miss you. Please, wherever you are, come home.