It seems like you’re all getting the news in my life several weeks late. I only get around to writing these letters when I both feel like it and when I have time to goof off at my junior high school.

In the past month, I’ve made a couple new Japanese friends. They’re two ladies about my age (22 and 24) who come to a weekly group in Maebashi called the Global Café to practice their English. It’s a pretty good deal for me. I get paid ¥2,000 ($17) to talk English to people who are almost fluent, pretty interesting, and well traveled, for an hour and a half. Three weeks ago on Friday, I made dinner plans with one of the girls I met. She was going to pick me up at the Denny’s parking lot at 7pm.

Around 7pm I started out from my apartment. A fenced concrete ditch about three feet deep runs by a small road passing next to my apartment. It goes underground through a tube when it crosses the highway to the back of my apartment. As I crossed the ditch I heard a high-pitched meowing. I called my friend on my keitai to tell her I would be about 5 minutes later. I went back to my apartment but couldn’t find my flashlight. I went back to the ditch. “Kitty?,” I called. More meowing. I walked to the Denny’s parking lot to get my friend and tell her what was happening. We went to the neighborhood Sekichu where I bought a new bike light (my last one got stolen). When we got back to the ditch, the cat was no longer meowing. I shined the light down there, but couldn’t see anything. Maybe it had gone through the tube? Maybe it had never been in the ditch to begin with, but on the bank, and was ok. There was nothing I could do.

I felt guilty for not having my flashlight available and maybe missing a chance to save this kitten. Especially after last spring when I had heard a similar mewing outside my apartment door. But when I had gotten a light, the mewing had stopped. I’m a bit of a weirdo. I have rescue fantasies about kittens (also ducklings). It was still bothering me that I might have ignored a plea for help six months ago.

We ate at a pretty decent Italian restaurant, the only one in Maebashi with good tomato sauce, in the mall and stayed talking with two additional friends for hours. I was exhausted when I got home. I got online to check my email and then was resolved to go to bed. I was planning to head to Tokyo for an allnighter on Saturday. Around 11:30, my guilt rose again and I decided to check once again for the kitten. At the ditch, I heard nothing but running water. “Kitty?” The desperate mewing started again. I shined the bike light down and saw a small fluffy head above the water. I swang my long legs over the fence and balanced myself on the narrow concrete bank. Kneeling carefully, I held the light with my left hand and used the right hand to scoop out the sad muddy clot of fur and bones. I had to put it down for a moment to climb over the fence. It was too exhausted to run away. Inside the apartment I cuddled the wet kitten to my chest and looked at it. It was ugly and scrawny with its fur matted. Its eyes were oozing and half shut. I stroked it gently on the head and it started to doze off.

Guessing that it didn’t have the strength to clean itself, I cut a large mud clot out of its fur, filled the bathroom sink with warm water, and gently bathed the kitten. It didn’t struggle. I don’t know it was just too tired, or if over four hours in cold water made a warm bath seem welcome.

Although it aroused my pity, I wasn’t exactly happy about the kitten. What the hell was I supposed to do with a kitten in a tiny apartment that probably didn’t allow pets in a country where I don’t speak the language and will be leaving in less than six months? Its not like I can just put up “Found Kitten” posters all over the neighborhood. Not only do I not know how to begin writing “Found Kitten” in Japanese, but no one posts fliers in rural Japanese neighborhoods. It’s just not done. Additionally, this cat was probably a stray and no one would want to claim it. Underneath all it’s fur, I could feel that its spine and hips too well. There are so many stray cats in Japan. Most cats I see are probably strays. Last spring, my friend had ended up in a similar situation when he found an orange kitten in a ditch on one of the large Japanese islands.

Moreover, what was I supposed to do with a tiny kitten when I was going to Tokyo for the weekend? Normally, I would love a temporary furry houseguest but not when it’s my total indefinite responsibility and not when I want to go party instead.

There was no way I was letting that sopping, gross kitten in my bed. It would probably pee in it. I wrapped the kitten in a towel and put it in the bathtub. It immediately zonked out and no amount of fashwashing and teethbrushing could wake it up. I put down a bowl of water. I went to the convenience store and bought a can of wet food. I sent a message to my friends, seeing if they would take the kitten for the weekend while I went to Tokyo.

In the middle of the night I woke up to my keitai beeping from a text message. I heard the kitten crying. I guess the kitten was dry enough now. I picked up the damp ball of fur and put it in my bed, where it curled up quietly and fell asleep again.

In the morning I found it curled up in exactly the way it had fallen asleep. Afraid it was about to relieve itself any moment, I put it back in the bathtub. I pushed the waterbowl towards it and it hissed a tiny kitten openmouthed breath. Fair enough. If I had spent the night in a ditch, I might hate the waterbowl too. I gently pushed the cat food near it and it ate a few bites. When it started crying again, I put it in my bedroom. The kitten immediately hid in my closet. Afraid it would pee in my closet, I dug it out and closed off any deep spaces. The kitten hid behind my curtains where it would stay for most of my time with it. It didn’t seem very interested in eating or drinking.

I was frightened I had rescued a feral kitten. There’s nothing wrong with saving a feral cat but you’re stuck with it. No one wants a cat that’s incapable of love.

I picked the kitten up and put it on my lap. It stayed limply while I worked knots and bits of bug exoskeletons out of its fur.

I prepared the kitten for its stay at my friends’ apartment. I bought several cans of kitten food, a plastic container for a litter box, and bag of biodegradable kitty litter. Already this kitten was costing me about ¥2,000 and it wasn’t even mine.

The kitten seemed to like being in a box on the way over or at least it was too weak to jump out. It mewed a few times in fear when the car started moving but settled down again. I took the elevator up to the 7th floor where my friends lived. At least they thought that sick little furball was a cutey. It hid behind a box in the apartment.