Zelda the cat is suffering, which means our whole household is in agony.

She’s in her fifth heat cycle since she came to us in February. Every other week, we’ve endured incessant midnight caterwauling. She’s done her best to make love to charging cables and electrical cords, to no avail. She attacks our legs and our arms with love bites, more demon than darling, leaving us bleeding and scarred.

Maybe that was why her previous owner gave her up so easily.

The short version of how she came to be with us goes something like this: Youngest Daughter had wanted a cat. Mom said no. Boyfriend of Youngest Daughter gets a collarless cat from a random yard because, who knows, it might not belong to them.

This is around Valentine’s Day.

What better way to show your love and devotion than by gifting a feral cat to your beloved?

Valiant Boyfriend goes to the door. Yes, it is their cat. But yes, he can have it.

Her name was Snowflake. 

But after five heats now, she is unabashedly living up to her new name, Zelda.

Her long, solid black fur, except for a few smoke-colored wisps on her fox-like tail, represent taste and elegance, refinement and beauty. 

Except when she’s in a heat cycle. 

Then she might as well be laid up on the front porch taking a hit from a strawberries and cream vape pen, wearing nothing but a Bucee’s T-shirt and a pair of Lululemon shorts two sizes too small.

She’s all dressed up with nowhere to go. She’s got money burning a hole in her pocket but nobody to take her to town.

This time next week, it will all be over.

I suppose having her spayed is the responsible thing to do, but I had considered taking her to my mother, the Cat Lady, who has an assortment of felines, at least a few of which are red-blooded virile males.

There are the brothers, Butter and Butterscotch, two yellow tailless cats with ringed target patterns on their sides. They arrived thanks to a young adult cousin and neighbor who knew my mother couldn’t say no.

There is Splatterfoot, a polydactyl beast of a cat.

There used to be a cat named King David, a large gray cat with enormous ears that sat atop his head like the peaks on a crown. King David met an untimely demise due to some wild and ranging dogs. 

The odd roaming pack of dogs usually limits the cat population. We live in the country, and the circle of life has its natural way with pets that live outside. It’s just a fact of life.

Mother has tried to keep the cats fixed, but new ones keep showing up. It’s an endless come-and-go convention where they know the complimentary meals are like the buffet at Shoney’s.

Mother’s cats like to lounge in the shade in the front yard, and one summer not too many years ago, a car drove slowly past their house, windows rolled down, several faces glued to the old homeplace.

My folks live on a small country road, not an interstate. Whenever a vehicle comes in or goes out their road, they can hear it, and then they turn into CIA agents hell bent on finding out who it is and what their business might be.

They spied the road until the vehicle came back out, windows still rolled down. My dad walked down the driveway to meet them to “see if they needed directions,” but the truth of the matter was he was most likely ready for some old Vietnam action, if need be. 

It was a family from Birmingham visiting our neck of the woods in search of hiking trails. 

They were also Muslims, and they were admiring the cats.

They had never seen so many in one place. They asked if any white ones were in the mix. No, not right now, but if there were ever any white kittens born, please give them a call.

They wanted two.

It was a cultural bridge. Evidently Muhammad revered cats, which are considered clean animals in Islam. He is said to have owned a sleek, white Angora.

I don’t guess he would want Zelda either, with her black fur, except he is quoted as having said, “Cats are not impure; they are among those who go around among us.”

I guess that means heat cycles and all.