Her Nibbs - Buttons

The tiny white kitten arrived 2 months ago. She was small and very weak. Her mother was sick, vomiting pieces of plastic. We left the mother in the Clinic and took the kitten to the house, to give them both a better chance.

The kitten had lost all the fur from her head. She looked weird, the pink inner eyelids half obscuring the beady black divergent stare from her pink, hairless face. Quite the little monster. At least she was small. One didn’t feel threatened, her being so tiny, by all that ugliness, all that premature suffering and deformity. “Squash it!” screams the primal impulse. But we didn’t.

We call her Buttons. Two months on she hasn’t noticeably grown. No – that’s not true. Her fur has grown, except on her face, and she looks almost normal - apart from the over-large belly.

Buttons wanted to survive. Perhaps she is a Child of Destiny. Where others surrender, clutched by the cold at 4am despite our best efforts (“I got 4cc of solution down her, and she seemed relaxed” we reassure ourselves, saying goodnight), Buttons chows down on every available occasion, demanding a refill as loudly as her tiny lungs permit.

She doesn’t run, she scuttles. She is fast. Open the door, she’s the first one out. Sit on the toilet, the others jump in your lap. Next thing you know, Buttons is on your shoulder, purring in your ear.

She doesn’t always respond right off to your caress. Maybe you caught her in a reflective moment. But when she acknowledges your attention the ears redress, and that little hairless nose nuzzles into yours. Hey – you can’t help it if your nose is hairless!

How can such a small body produce such a large purr? Put a motor like that in a rocket and it’s the Moon and back. Put a record like that on your night-time turntable, and it’s the Moon and beyond.

Where is the love? Where does it come from? What is it that enables communication between species? How can it be possible for this tiny hairless feline to sit so confidently on a human shoulder? To hide her face in your hair while you watch Lethal Weapon?

Why does it take a creature from another species to allow Humans to see the beauty beyond the ugliness?

Buttons has survived, and is enjoying Life. Every day is a winding road. Everybody gets high, everybody gets low. And, given Love, we get a little bit closer. A sea of anarchy, except for those patches of order provided by AWARE, and by phenomena like Buttons.

Martin Leadbitter April 2007