Caracas Fire Fighters to the Rescue

Caridad

HAVANA TIMES — I’ll make a point of looking at the pine tree facing my room more often. Actually, I already do this several times a day. It’s something unavoidable for me: I sit down in front of the computer to get some work done, look out the window and set my eyes on the pine tree.

We’d been hearing a cat meowing for several days. It was an intermittent sound, at times intense, at times weaker.

We didn’t know whether the cat was big or small. The only thing we were sure of is that the animal wasn’t in the backyard of the apartment we live in. “Perhaps it’s only a cat that’s just given birth in some nearby yard,” I said to myself, to calm my nerves some.

It rained yesterday morning and we again heard the pitiful meows. I went out to have a look, because, whatever the case was, a cat in heat or a cat with a litter, I couldn’t leave them outside in the rain. If she was still meowing, that meant she was in a fix.

I looked for the cat and looked some more…and found nothing.

I cursed a few times, I even meowed, but I was barely able to hear the cat over the sound of the rain and the traffic.

I went back into my room. I got a phone call and stood next to the window. I looked at the pine tree, as I normally do, and…yikes!

There, up in the tree, was the little yellow kitten, decorating a point near the tip of the pine tree, as though he were a Christmas doll.

The person at the other end of the line got startled with my scream. What was that cat doing up there? I asked the caller to phone the fire department or whoever took care of that.

I went outside to talk to the cat and told the other people in the building to also call the fire department.

While we stood in the middle of the street, giving the kitten support, several neighbors who were also concerned about the cat’s incessant meowing came out. No one, it seems, had thought to look towards the branches of the pine tree.

We had our doubts that fire-fighters would come all the way down to our street just to rescue a cat. In less than an hour, however, a small vehicle arrived. They noticed the pine tree was a bit fragile and that the cat was nestled very high, so they called another car, with a longer extendable ladder.

The poor cat got so frightened he started going around the pine tree and to go down a bit. We thought it was funny that only a bigger fear could make him move and try and get down on his own. He wasn’t doing so well, however, and, in the end, the fire fighter managed to catch him.

Sighs of relief and applause – yes, just like in the movies.

It’s not every day one has a story with a happy ending to tell.

Well, it was a happy ending for the cat and for us. For the time being, neither the dog nor the cat in our building find anything agreeable about the arrival of this new and mischievous guest.

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