Moscow (Part IV - Two Days Before)

Click here for Parts I, II, III

My flight was leaving early Wednesday morning.

On Monday night, after work, I went to the supermarket to buy non-perishable kosher food for my trip. Laden down with groceries, I stopped to sit on a bench on the way home, and got the following text from my new roommate: "Wylie still not home. Thought you should know." He'd been out of the house now for 24 hours, probably cavorting with his friends in the bushes around the corner, but still, I should look for him.

So I dropped off the groceries and went to look for my cat. I called his name up and down all over the neighborhood. Finally I heard a faint "meow" answering me. I called, he answered. I followed the voice. I called, he answered . . . why wasn't he coming to me?

Using the light of my phone, I found him in an unused boiler room under a nearby building. He was meowing, but not getting up. I was terrified. I scooped him up and took him home, where I discovered that one of his hind legs had a wound so gaping, I could see significant amounts of muscle. He was trailing drops of blood behind him.

Very upset, I arranged for an emergency trip to the veterinarian at 10 o'clock at night.  The vet announced Wylie to be infected and dehydrated, and gave him antibiotics, and painkiller, and IV fluids, and said I'd have to bring him back in the morning so that the clinic could stitch and clean him up properly.

I was petrified about what would happen to my cat, and also – the stress of the time this was taking, and the money, and the anxiety was not well-timed, given that I was leaving for Moscow in about 24 hours.