I like this passage very much in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row from Chapter 22:

The Setup: (Henri has just lost another girl.  His girlfriends always leave him after living with Henri for several months on Henri’s boat that is cramped—to cramped for two people—, has a low ceiling you’re always hitting your head and no toilet. Though Henri is sad that Alice, the last girl, has left, he is also rather relieved  he can now stretch out as he pleases, eat what he wants and be free. Yet he mourns for a while after being deserted from the absence of female companionship and buys a gallon of wine to get drunk.  While drinking he cried sometimes being all by himself but in the end, he gets a wonderful feeling of well-being.)

"It was during this his ritualistic mournings for the lost of Alice that the strange thing began to happen.  It was night and his lamp was burning and he had just barely begun to get drunk when suddenly he knew he was no longer alone.  He let his eye wander cautiously up and across the cabin and there on the other side sat a devilish young man, a dark handsome young man.  His eyes gleamed with cleverness and spirit and energy and his teeth flashed.  There was something very dear and yet very terrible in his face.  And beside him sat a golden-haired little boy, hardly more than a baby.  The man looked down at the baby and the baby looked back and laughed delightedly as though something wonderful were about to happen. Then the man looked over at Henri and smiled and he glanced back at the baby.  From his upper left vest pocket he took an old-fashioned straight-edged razor. He opened it and indicated the child with a gesture of his head. He put a hand among the curls and the baby laughed gleefully and then the man tilted the chin and cut the baby’s throat and the baby went right on laughing. But Henri was howling with terror…" --John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

Seeing all those pieces was terrifying enough. I decided then to let the bed stand against the wall like a picture of city skyline until a friend who is more mechanical than I arrived in July from San Francisco. He likes doing that kind of thing and does them with ease.  I could wait that long for a proper bed to sleep in since it was already June, and July just around the corner. 

Until then, I slept on the futon/sofa in the Study or the mattress on the floor in the bedroom or curled up on the love seat in the living room.  I can fall asleep about anywhere including a stone bench or so that used to be the case when I was in my twenties and thirties spent entirely in San Francisco. 

I fell asleep less on the futon with Moses here since Moses occupied the futon full-time at night in stunning positions while I worked at the desk or just browsed the internet. By the time I was ready to sleep, which occurs as deep as being sedated after one glass of milk, little Moses was sleeping so nicely on the futon that I hated to disturb his sleep.  Though, once or twice from the drowsy effect milk puts me under I just curled up with Moses right there on the futon, and he opened his eyes for moment, stretched and went right back to sleep.  
​

For several nights now as the moon became full and you could see the man in the moon clearly, some of us here at my apartment building on South Coit Street at Old Cherokee Road and across from Timrod Park listened to cries of a kitten in distress.  I heard that kitten again this morning after shopping, so I investigated.

Sure enough.  It was a kitten in distress.  But its cries were not coming from the wood or anywhere on the property; his cries came from a gutter underneath a parking lot at Medispa and a doctor’s (Podiatry) office building.
 
Feeling as distressed as the kitten because I knew it was hungry, I bought it canned food at a pet store and spooned out portions to drop down the gutter since a paper plate was already there.  Since some the food fell elsewhere I dropped the whole open can down and it stayed up for the kitten to eat.  It was a small can of salmon that cost about $2 at the local pet store in the shopping center up the street.  Satisfied by the smell and sight of food the cute little thing came out from hiding in a hole and started eating without yelping anymore.
 
Oh, I so wanted to hold it, comfort it, tell it everything was OK but I couldn’t get down there...because mankind builds walls to keep the world off balance, unfriendly, unkind and disconnected.
 
I have phoned an animal shelter here in Florence to help the cat.  The woman I spoke with named Beth told me that feral cats are common in Florence and State of South Carolina.  How horrible, I thought.  The stray mother cat (a familiar sound too close to home...though this mother is probably feral too) has kittens down in a gutter and just goes off somewhere to do whatever.  Dud!  I thought…why that’s just the way low South Carolinians are with their own children?  They abandon them to their grandparents and welfare of the state and go off somewhere and come back later to sniff out the corpse or demand the money if any is there.  But I won’t go there or into that…That hurts too much and too deep.

Beth figures someone from the doctor’s office was feeding the kitten in hopes to coerce it out.  There’s even a board there on the side for kitty or mother cat to climb but little Feral won’t budge from his sorry den—a gutter/storm drain…but boy did he eat and loved it so.  I was happy he was happy eating. 
 
Beth says if I still hear the kitten by Monday they will send someone out to rescue it…because I cannot lift the drain to do it myself, else I would rescue it in a heartbeat.
 
Meanwhile,
 
I have called and left a second message with another shelter, but they have not called back yet...
 
Pray for little Feral...