It was a lazy sunday afternoon. We had just finished our special sunday lunch and as usual were turning in for our usual siesta; when we suddenly heard a thud coming in from our backyard. When we looked out of the window, we found a disturbing scene, of a tabby kitten writhing and convulsed in pain, on the ground. The kitten had apparently fallen off a high perch from up a tree. We didnt think this will have any impact on us, but we were so wrong. The events that followed had us involved in many ways with the fate of this kitten. We didnt intervene immediately, but waited for the mother cat to come onto the scene. When she did, she did her best to revive the kitten by licking and sniffing him/her out, (we were not sure of the gender yet). The kitten unfortunately didnt respond and the evening was wearing thin and it was getting dark. Sadly we didnt think the kitten will survive the night and left it to its fate. Next morning, we found the kitten in situ, but still alive. We then asked our gardener to cover it with a light cloth and later on to shift it to the confines of our garage by putting it in a cardboard box. The kitten fitted in quite snugly and we were quite happy with it. Besides the mother cat was quite content to keep a watch on it and also be indulgent towards its sibling. The sibling was very active by going in and out of the box, towards which it had taken a liking to. So, we called the injured kitten, Bill. Bill, was for most of the time comatose, and we had started to feed him milk, whenever the mother cat was not watching. Bill seemed to be in pain as he seemed to have hurt one of his hind legs in the fall and was in a state of trauma. We were hoping for the best and we decided to take it up to another level by calling for the animal ambulance. A huge ambulance arrived and created quite a furor in the neighbourhood. Bill was examined and was administered an injection and we came to know that Bill was a "He". The vet reassured us by saying that he should be fine in four  or five days time and to feed it dilute milk. Then, we got Bill inside the house as we found to our horror that he was very vulnerable to an attack by a pack of stray dogs, that were barking from outside our gate. Bill, to our happiness, showed some improvement by getting in and out of the box and strolling about. He also started to do some stretches and was trying to find his bearings, so to speak. He had some very expressive eyes. We started to miss his presence when we had to go out to make some important purchases. We used to routinely check the box kept under the staircase to find out whether all was well with him. But somehow we got the feeling that he was disinterested in life, as his hind leg continued to be problematic. The trauma that he had undergone was still haunting him and he would retire quite often into the box. However we encouraged him to be more outdoorsy and leave him out in the garden. He took the opportunity to spend some time out sunning. At the same time, we found to our anxiety that he was quite resigned to his fate and perhaps he instinctively knew that he was not going to survive. Bill disappeared from our lives just as suddenly as he had come into it, as one afternoon we found the box in the garage to be empty. He could have strayed out of the gate and god forbid may have become a victim of one of the stray dogs that were doing the rounds in the streets. We, however decided to be more optimistic about his fate and encouraged positive thoughts into believing that maybe he had relocated or gone in search of greener pastures. This maybe so, but we were sure of one thing and that was, on the whole it was  an enriching experience and the fact that we can never forget Bill.