whose ego - Fri, 19/10/2007 - 11:27am
The cat trots around the room coquetishly, her furry tail projected vertically out of her ass and propelled assertively into the air like an antenna, insistently swatting invisible flies.
I'm slouching on the couch, my legs stretched on the opposing table.
As our paths cross, her tail brushes against the back of my bare thighs and tickles me.
I don't mind.
Neither does she.
I call her nothing.
I call her Cat.
On her 1st day over, i had to lure her out of her hiding with slices of Emmental cheese and Persian delicacies.
I'd go down on all fours to collect her frail body from underneath chairs and sofas.
She was a lump hardly the size of fist, as needy and delicate as a dust bunny.
Now look at her, prancing around at such a pompous gait, parading her immaculate body to let me know who owns the room.
It's the 19th of October 2007, I write in my diary:
"If i died and my body went undiscovered for four days, this cat would consequently run out of food supplies. She'd meow for two days and sniff me for two more, then eventually she'll dig into my corpse with her horny claws and feast on my guts, nibbling and taking her sweet time. When the smell of decay finally alarms the neighbors, the police would break in and find her in the corner flossing her canines with my finger nails!
Oh- What a sad lad, the officer in charge would exclaim, killed by his own pet cat.
And the accompanying force would heartedly approve.""Never trust a milky white cat, on a diet of Kiri, turned peachy orange for no obvious reasons." My Mama once told me.
Cat now stares at me with defiant squinting eyes, fiery yellow oculi in which swam, non-chalantly, dome-shaped pitch black corneas.
Her gaze dissects me and probes me to the marrow.
She knows.
She knows.
She balances her sleek body on her claws.
Her back arches up and her stomach contracts into a thin foil of intestines with a double crust of flesh and fur.
She sways her body backwards, allowing her back limbs to bend under its weight.
I expect the feline beast to dive across the room and land on my face at any moment.
"O, the blood bath." I calculate.
I feel like a tamer who's lost his cat-o'-nine-tails in a circular circus ring with nowhere to hide.
The herd of lions, now sensing their superiority, has amassed to have the final laugh.
Cat's jaws part ways at a pace so slow yet evidently tangible.
I can almost hear their cogs engage.
I await a raging roar to come blow me out of my slumber, but instead a docile purr comes staggering out.
So swift and easy, it amounted to nothing but a gentle waft, like air through air, and in my head that was the oddness of it, how such a mighty gesture could bear nothing but such a small pleadable sound.
And i reckon that was probably the beauty of it, that a sound so small and trivial could prove so shattering, so deafening, and even if not to negotiate with matter and substance, then to holily fade in dead space upon dead space.