Save feral kitten

For several nights now as the moon became full and you could see the man in the moon clearly, some of us here at my apartment building on South Coit Street at Old Cherokee Road and across from Timrod Park listened to cries of a kitten in distress.  I heard that kitten again this morning after shopping, so I investigated.

Sure enough.  It was a kitten in distress.  But its cries were not coming from the wood or anywhere on the property; his cries came from a gutter underneath a parking lot at Medispa and a doctor’s (Podiatry) office building.
 
Feeling as distressed as the kitten because I knew it was hungry, I bought it canned food at a pet store and spooned out portions to drop down the gutter since a paper plate was already there.  Since some the food fell elsewhere I dropped the whole open can down and it stayed up for the kitten to eat.  It was a small can of salmon that cost about $2 at the local pet store in the shopping center up the street.  Satisfied by the smell and sight of food the cute little thing came out from hiding in a hole and started eating without yelping anymore.
 
Oh, I so wanted to hold it, comfort it, tell it everything was OK but I couldn’t get down there...because mankind builds walls to keep the world off balance, unfriendly, unkind and disconnected.
 
I have phoned an animal shelter here in Florence to help the cat.  The woman I spoke with named Beth told me that feral cats are common in Florence and State of South Carolina.  How horrible, I thought.  The stray mother cat (a familiar sound too close to home...though this mother is probably feral too) has kittens down in a gutter and just goes off somewhere to do whatever.  Dud!  I thought…why that’s just the way low South Carolinians are with their own children?  They abandon them to their grandparents and welfare of the state and go off somewhere and come back later to sniff out the corpse or demand the money if any is there.  But I won’t go there or into that…That hurts too much and too deep.

Beth figures someone from the doctor’s office was feeding the kitten in hopes to coerce it out.  There’s even a board there on the side for kitty or mother cat to climb but little Feral won’t budge from his sorry den—a gutter/storm drain…but boy did he eat and loved it so.  I was happy he was happy eating. 
 
Beth says if I still hear the kitten by Monday they will send someone out to rescue it…because I cannot lift the drain to do it myself, else I would rescue it in a heartbeat.
 
Meanwhile,
 
I have called and left a second message with another shelter, but they have not called back yet...
 
Pray for little Feral...