I Am A Cat

I Am A Cat

I am a cat. People say that I sit upon this wall and stay happily where I am because I have been castrated. It keeps me home, they say. What would they know? I'm older now and I'm quite a solid cat. I speak my mind. I have no desire to mix with other cats in the neighbourhood, fools they are. I have no desire to confront sloppy mouthed dogs, either. One lives a house or two along. Occasionally the beast is let off its chain and allowed to run amok. Doesn't it go mad when it sees me sitting on my wall? Do I care? Most of all I avoid meeting people. Either they want to run me down in a car or cuddle me. "Here, kitty, kitty." Ugh! I'm getting too old for it, even if I am in my prime. I'm a big ginger tom, minus the tackle, and I'll sit upon my wall for whatever reasons I choose.

I enjoy sitting high up. I see everything that goes on around me. Whether people, dogs or cats see me, I wouldn't care. From their inferior position on the ground, they can't touch me.

Wide leaves shake slowly above my furry head as the breeze blows quietly. The tree has a good trunk. It's wide, white and fleshy. There's ample room for me to sharpen my claws. I can sharpen my claws on the tree trunk all day long and, damn, the thing keeps living. It only grows bigger. The leaves grow longer and wider, the trunk fleshier and whiter. The leaves protect me from the sun while it's day and, as the gentle wind blows during evening, as now, the wide leaves rustle comfortably over my ginger fur.

My nose presently twitches with night smells. I smell different meaning at night. The air is different, sounds are different. Cats are made for the night. It's why we have whiskers and twitching noses. Our eyes swallow up the darkness so that no more darkness can penetrate but must give up the fight and eventually allow us sight. Our ears prick up. Distant movement is gathered together in vibrations carried across our fur. It all has meaning.

When people shudder from unobserved events, they giggle like little children and say, "Ooh, someone has just walked over my grave." Ho, ho, ho - aren't they a clever lot. Try being a cat for awhile. A leaf falls three blocks away, and I register it like a shout.

I love it! When I shudder, I'm told more than ever their words tell them.

The moon is out tonight, and it's good to see. The moon is my friend. Tonight it is only half bright, and I'm pleased with that. My deep eyes are deep enough to carry the full weight of its silky light. When the moon is full, you see, I have a tendency to run mad, and I never really know why, but I find it disturbing.

I'm happy sitting on the wall. I like sitting on the window sill inside, and looking out the window too. I see everything going on around me. But while I sit on the wall, I can breathe everything going on around me, and hear it. The night is a montage of clear events.

Soon the woman will come out and I will go inside, if I choose. She never forces me to go inside. Nor should she. I rule, I am the boss, I run the house. Why else would I have my dinner served and my toilet checked? The woman and the other cat, the she-cat, whom I barely, infrequently tolerate, realise this, I believe. They're both quite happy serving me.

I was the first to arrive, even if I can't always remember how it all began. Truthfully, I can't remember how it began. Or if it began. But if it did begin, I was here when it began, sitting upon this wall.

Well now, something really has taken my interest. I’ll crouch down a little lower and examine it further. It's a thing, it really is, without a word of a lie. It's incredible how it rises and how it lands again and how it is all silvery when it catches in streams of light. It rests only centimetres from me. I'm sure it's too stupid to see me, or smell me, or hear or feel me. If it did, it would realise how much trouble it was in. But, oh, I do enjoy watching it. It intrigues me. It enlivens me - the way it unsticks itself from the wall and rises and takes upon itself the silvery flight of a moonbeam. It becomes something of the moon, and something of the wide, green, long leaves fluttering above my pricked up ears. The air blows it, suspends it, and lends to it little dreams. I cannot take my eyes from it. It smells unusual, and it mildly panics, sending upon a mild air its little signals of distress and panic. O, but why? Because I am a cat, because I am Lord Something. Is it why it panics? Can I break it? I wonder if I can break it? What will happen if I place my paw upon it? I can feel it under my paw. It is as light as air and almost as small. Yet I can feel its height and I can feel it squash out flat beneath my paw, as I lower my weight upon it.

Now I stand firm on brick. Nothing could breathe beneath my huge ginger weight. And yet when I release my paw, as I now do, the thing still moves. In fact it moves more so. Its little fluttery panic attacks increase. Its distress is an uncomfortable pant. I really am intrigued. And if I place my paw upon it ...and release my paw once again ...yes, by My Mighty Self, it’s fluttering about again. I could do this all night.

I'd like to get closer. I'll crouch down, right down, and flatten my modest belly upon the brick wall. Now I can eyeball the thing, and be told stories, according to its near smell. But the best way to understand a thing, is to eat it.

What?! The woman has arrived. I misjudged the time. And what is she saying?

''What are you doing? It's a piece of fluff. You can't eat a piece of fluff. Take it out of your mouth."

How ignominious! For all their words, people say very little.

I hear and know things in my own way. Fort example, I know the woman is leaving for the night and won't return till night has walked across my wall and till the day arrives again and forces me to sleep some more. I don't even have to get close to her to smell this story. I can smell it from here. Her clothes smell of the hospital where she works. Sometimes she is like a cat and works during the night.

"Come here", she says.

I'm not going there, now I know she wants me. My fur stands up as she flaps the wind in torrid currents. She is in a rush, frantic, no doubt running late. She wants me inside and bedded down before she leaves for work. She wants to catch me. But why should I be caught?

I jump from the wall and run into the garden. I step over stones and knock a few sticks flying. Momentarily I stop where once I found a spider and now look if it's returned. It hasn't, no sign. Then I run along a piece of green wood and knock it rolling along the path. The woman almost falls over it. I don't have to run fast to keep ahead of her. I just have to remain cleverer, which isn't hard. Finally I glide beneath leaves which grow close to the ground and lodge myself in an indiscernible corner. I could stay here for hours. And on occasions I have. She and I both know it.

I sit here comfortably. I can see the woman, she is close enough for me to know all her stories. I can smell and hear her. Her vibes create epics for me to read. Yet she looks past me. She can't see, smell or hear me. Vibrations would have to strike her on the head before she realised their presence.

To prove I am the boss, I place her beneath my paw. She panics as I bewilder her. The air is crowded with shrill panic, as if time is running out, and as if she will not get to work on time. The air is loud with it, even though the night is quiet, bar the noise that follows a breeze. Then I release my paw, and meow pathetically, speaking in mouth sounds, communicating to her in her own form of language. She understands immediately. She imagines she can see me. The air is less crowded with a fluttering of distress. I meow again and the air is almost vacant - a cool swirl. Then the air crowds with her sounds again as I cease meowing. Again she looks towards me but cannot see me, nor receive my stories. The air crowds closer together and I sense and know her anticipation and lack of power. The air crowds with anxiety and defeat. I am amazed and intrigued. I could do this all night.