A car rumbles past me, just inches away from my face. But all I can do is lie here, suffering until some merciful angel carries my soul to God knows where. I know that humans have two places they could go, but I don’t know where cats go when they die. Especially cats who have lived such a life as I.

In my final fleeting moments my mind drifts back to my kittenhood and my first taste of how harsh the world really is. Rainy nights, whimpering against the cold body of my mother who barely gave me time to ween off her milk before a Corvette ended her. I felt again the rough hands scooping me up and away to a rundown homeless shelter for orphaned street cats. There I would meet the love of my life. How I missed Catrina and her deft claws that could unlock any cage. And into the streets we would wander, in search of mice and mahem. Countless mice have suffered and died under our torturous tricks. I don’t know if even I would let myself into Heaven with the things I have done.

I relive again the surreal moment I turned around after scampering across a busy street to laugh with her about the stupid cars only to realize that she hadn’t made it across. It was then that I made up my mind that I would get revenge on the world that had taken away the only two creatures who I had let myself care for. And thus began a lifelong rampage of destruction.

But here I lie helplessly, by the same method that killed my mother and my love. I almost chuckle to think of the irony of it all. No matter what I have done, revenge has come upon me before I can even feel the satisfaction of my own revenge. What an utterly merciless existence.

Perhaps I wouldn’t be here dying by the hands of the world, if only the world had shown me a little more mercy.