![Abandoning A Cat](https://magarticles.magzter.com/articles/8859/374957/5d94e3025e159/Abandoning-A-Cat.jpg)
This one, for instance:
When we were living in Shukugawa (part of Nishinomiya City, in Hyogo Prefecture), one day we went to the beach to get rid of a cat. Not a kitten but an older female cat. Why we needed to get rid of it I can’t recall. The house we lived in was a single-family home with a garden and plenty of room for a cat. Maybe it was a stray we’d taken in that was now pregnant, and my parents felt they couldn’t care for it anymore. My memory isn’t clear on this point. Getting rid of cats back then was a common occurrence, not something that anyone would criticize you for. The idea of neutering cats never crossed anyone’s mind. I was in one of the lower grades in elementary school at the time, I believe, so it was probably around 1955, or a little later. Near our home were the ruins of a bank building that had been bombed by American planes—one of a few still visible scars of the war.
My father and I set off that summer afternoon to leave the cat by the shore. He pedalled his bicycle, while I sat on the back holding a box with the cat inside. We rode along the Shukugawa River, arrived at the beach at Koroen, set the box down among some trees there, and, without a backward glance, headed home. The beach must have been about two kilometres from our house.
This story is from the October 7, 2019 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the October 7, 2019 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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