Fruits of Insanity

the cat in my backyard

In a beginning, for there are as many beginnings as there are seeds in a field of dandelions or stars in a tiny corner of the sky, there was the warmth of their mother. Like any mother, she sang to them as they huddled within. She sang the myths of cats, as she remembered from her mother's songs. She sang of cats that were so big that their fur was the stars and their eyes were the moon and the sun. She sang how one day while in a curious mood, a cat of the sky coughed and spat out the world for them to play with. She sang how in the proper order of the world, cats reign, while every other creation can be divided into predator, prey, and plaything.

All cats are born with their mothers' songs in their heads, reminding them that they are only a whisper away from being gods. And so it was with this litter, who learned and grew until it was time and with blood and pain, they came blind and deaf and mewling into the world. In that beginning, they were clumsy things, climbing over each other to reach their mother's milk, crawling into the soft warmth of their mother's fur or being pinned down to be washed by her rough tongue.

There were five kittens, four females and a male, who was the last born and smallest of the litter. Because their mother was white with a black face and father was black with a white bib, the kittens were mostly black. The oldest had a white patch around her left eye. The second had a white face. The third had four white paws. The fourth had a white spot on the tip of her tail as though it had been dipped in paint. The last, little male was all black, from his nose to his tail. Their mother's human family named them Patch, Mask, Socks, Painter, and Panther.

These were temporary names, of course, because her family could not keep so many kittens. They were destined to be given new families of their own after they were weaned, as was proper, and those new humans would offer more permanent names. Humans have a way of naming things without considering what they would name themselves.

Cat names are complicated, of course, because they take their names from their most noteworthy attribute, which means that they change throughout their lives. Although her humans called her Trixie, their mother was known among cats as She Who Climbs because of the curtain incident when she was just six months old. She was so proud of the consternation she'd caused among all that she hadn't changed it, although many moons had passed since that incident. She Who Climbs had chosen to birth her litter in her space, the warmest, most private, and safest area of the house, the top of the refrigerator.

This was met with great consternation in the morning when her family came down for breakfast, but that was to be expected, and now that the business of birth had been finished and her children were in the world, She Who Climbs had no great argument with her woman lifting them down one by one and placing them in a basket near her food and water.

That was another beginning, the first touch of the other. She Who Climbs watched carefully as her children were taken one by one in her woman's hands, waiting until the last one was rearranged before leaving her throne on top of the refrigerator to take charge of the basket.

The kittens had no real argument with the process—their eyes were closed and they were content with the smallness of the world as they understood it so far—the warmth of their mother's fur and the smooth cool hands that were their first contact with the wider world. They were mostly oblivious to the change, content to crawl over each other to find their mother to nurse, or to curl up in a tangle of limbs when it was time to rest.

It wasn't the last time a human touched on that first day. Her woman had two young who were old enough that She Who Climbs tolerated their touch. After school that day, She Who Climbs allowed them to cuddle her kittens in turn, but only when their mother was there to supervise, because no other hands belonged in the basket. She was prepared to scratch anyone else who tried, which the older child discovered to her chagrin. While they were blind, deaf and defenseless, with no real way of escaping a careless touch, no one else should assume that a mother cat would share her litter.

Patch was the biggest and strongest of the kittens, but Panther was the most curious, so it was fitting that he was the first to open his eyes. And that was another beginning. He was the first to take tentative, stumbling steps out into the wider world, although his sisters soon followed. As weeks past, they grew together, exploring the bounds of the kitchen and then taking the first hesitant step on the carpet in the living room.

At three weeks, Socks caused some confusion in the human family by falling to sleep in a cozy corner of the living room under the couch for several hours. She Who Climbs was not worried, of course, because she knew her child would come back when she was hungry, but the humans searched until Socks woke and tumbled back into their sight.

But even while they were finding their feet in the manner of all small growing creatures, their most important lessons were found in their mother's songs—stories of the great cats—lions and leopards, panthers and tigers. Their mother told them that these big cats live free, apex predators in their various domains. She told stories of the dangers of dogs, who are bigger and must be taught their place in the world where cats rule. She told stories of prey and hunting, the taste of mice and the sweet crunch of bird bones. They were learning to grow out of kittenhood and be cats, and that was a beginning.

At three months, Mask was the first to go, chosen by the family next door who called her Mimic because of the way she interacted with their dog. In the fullness of time, her name became She Who Rides for her habit of using that dog as a steed.

Patch and Paint went to the same home, hours away in the countryside where they lived in a barn. Patch became She Who Hunts, while Paint became a mother herself, taking the name She Who Mothers, because she took every small animal on the farm, chickens, dogs, sheep, horses, goats, and taught them the ways of cats.

Socks and Panther remained at the home where they began, because after everything, the human family's children could not let them go. Socks owned the older child, becoming She Who Finds Herself in Mysterious Places for her penchant to curl up in some out of the way place in her child's room to not be found for hours.

Panther never took a human as his own, but accepted all helping hands as his due. He learned all of his mother's songs, better than any other kitten in the litter, and one day he left, one small cat slipping into the world to find food at many hands. He Who Waits appeared in my backyard one summer day, to lay the stairs to the deck and bask in the sun until the small creatures forgot he was there and he pounced.

And that is another beginning.

Word count: 1288
Prompt 11: National Black Cat Appreciation Day (8/17)