Harmony

One October night in 2002, I received a phone call from Alex telling me that while on his walk with Loy Loy, a little black and white kitten had appeared out of nowhere in the open air car park and had tailed them back to our void deck. I went downstairs to see if I could find the kitten's mother, while Alex brought Loy Loy back upstairs so as not to frighten the kitten's mother away. He came back down and we waited for a few hours at the void deck to see if the kitten's mother would turn up. In that time, the little kitten tried to play with us, but we avoided contact as we knew that its mother may not recognise it once its body was covered with our scent.

Finding us to be less than suitable playmates, the kitten then went up to all and sundry who passed through the void deck. As usual, some people screeched and were visibly frightened by this tiny kitten, others warned their children not to touch the 'dirty' creature and a few just ignored it while it tried to engage them in play. Watching her, we were thankful that no one had done any actual harm to her (maybe it's because we were staring). But we knew then, that we had to take her home with us before somebody rejects her advances by kicking her away.

As we did with the previous lot of strays (a litter of 5 kittens) that we had found, we immediately set out to look for a home for her. We took photos of her and plastered them at the vets, supermarkets, pet stores and also on Cat Welfare Society's website. We also named her Harmony, because her face reminded us of the yin-yang symbol. But weeks past, and there was not a single enquiry from anyone. I knew it would not be easy to find a home for a black and white kitten (black kittens and tortoiseshell ones are just as difficult), but given how cute she looked in the photo, I didn't think I would have any trouble in Harmony's case. I guess 'cuteness' is in the eye of the beholder.

Anyway, after 9 weeks, we finally got a bite! A man called looking for a kitten for his son. He said he would call again after he had consulted his wife. But when I told Alex about the call, his face was filled with dismay. He had assumed that we were keeping her after all this time. Luckily, the potential adopter did not call again, and we got to keep her as our own.