This guy here was my boyhood friend Leviathan, sadly passed on now. He was cursed with superior intellect and a diminished size, he always knew he should have been the boss of the other cats but lacked the fortitude to enforce his rule. Naturally he picked fights and peed everywhere.
I remember as a kitten he was always very quick to devise a way out of the pillow mazes my friend and I would construct to test him. Much slower was his sister Faralite who I believe had sustained some kind of brain injury after falling down a flight of stairs. Admittedly not a fair comparison, but there were other indications of his formidable mind. For instance as a very young kitten he would dash behind the television when it was turned off to try and figure out where the image had retreated to. Also, I may have occationally dressed him up in clothes borrowed from a 'Cabbage Patch' doll... the look of utter revulsion on his face revealed to me that he was very aware of both his dignity and his powerlessness.
In his later years he became increasingly aggitated. He developed a deep seated hatred for our dog Musashi, who as a former stray had a neurosis about other animals being anywhere near his food bowl. Knowing this Leviathan would wait for the perfect moments to enact cruelity on the poor beast. For instance there was a sliding glass door seperating our kitchen from the outside and maybe 6 feet away directly parallel was the dogs dish. Leviathan would wait for Musashi to be let out and then hide beneath the kitchen table until the dog wanted to be let back in. He would then get up and show himself, slowly and comfortably strutting towards the dogs food and then at the same slow comfortable pace he would take a single pebble of dog food out and eat it, making sure to look over his shoulder at the dog each time to ensure his audience was watching and then consume another and another until Musashi was let in.
There was another incident in which Musashi, who had loved to run up and down the perimeter of our wooden fence barking at passersby, had his foot slip and stick in the space between the fence and the ground. He cried and growled, his idiot dog mind blaming everyone for his pain. Suddenly a particularily bushy hydrangea that was nearby shook violently and then out came old Leviathan! The first few steps he took as a cat on all fours but he quickly built up an incredible momentum and his mad run became bipedal, his small but muscular hind legs pumping like pistons his front legs, now having become arms swinging with the speed and precision of a celebrated and rabid pugilist. He must have walked atleast 15 feet, on an incredible tear on just his hind legs and his arms swinging.
When he met with the dog it was a massacre, Musashi eyes betrayed his helplessness while the cat pummelled him gloriously until I eventually decided enough was enough and restrained him.
He also came to hate a very pompous neighbourhood dog who would walk with his master by our house every morning at 6:30am, holding his own leash in his mouth.
I believe the hatred was born of this dog for:
A) Showing off, especially while in front of Leviathans home
B) Being such a pussy as to hold an impliment of his own slaverly in his mouth, in public, every goddamned day.
Leviathan of course, could not stand for something so vulgar, so he developed a routine of his own:
He would be sure to ask my Mom every morning to be let out at around 6:15am and then would rest on the sidewalk, on the corner just infront of our house and wait. When the dog came by he would give him one good solid smack in the face and then return to the front door to be let back in. Eventually our neighbours had to walk their dog on the opposite side of the street and Leviathan would sit in his regular spot and glare at the dog every morning, to let him know that he would always be vigilant.
TL:DR - Leviathan was one of the most incredible characters I've ever met. He rose above the limits of his physical stature and achieved greatness using his wit and a propensity for violence that I feel the animals on my old block will never see again and certainly never forget.
RIP my best friend.
