The cat guest

©MCD

It showed up at the window unexpectedly. Like most things in life, it arrived unforeseen.

It was timid at first, unsure of whether to stay or leave. You could notice the anguish, the fear, the uncertainty.

It wouldn’t say a word, but it would stare right into your eyes.

As time passed, it would arrive more often, taking further steps inside. The nervousness disappeared and it was more certain.

Then it began uttering sounds; whispers at first that turned into confident statements.

With the passing of days, it became accustomed to being there. It looked forward to those visits.

And then it decided to stay.

The cat at the window chose where it wanted to be. It found love and care there, probed its surroundings, and selected to willingly be there.

It was pretty much how we all react to anywhere we go.

We may lose ourselves at times, and not know how we reached the crossroad we’re at, but if we remember how we got there, we’ll reassess our motives and actions.

Lo mas bonito de perderse es volverse a encontrar (The best thing about getting lost is finding yourself again).

Advertisement

Just Jump

©MCD

He was born on a roof. His mother was a fan of jumping up there and laying in the sunlight. Cats love that.

But when he began to walk, he was too scared to jump that high.

One day, when his mother was not in sight and the kind lady who supplied the food called him to lunch, he had to jump a small height off a wall his mother had left him on. He fell clumsily after much thought, but he was too scared to ever try climbing that high again.

He grew into a beautiful fluffy cat. And he watched as his mother continued to draw in sunlight on the roof.

One day, he bolstered up all his courage and decided to go for it. After all, cats are supposed to be known for their dexterous abilities and flexibility.

He considered all his options, all the ways he could climb up. And then, in a spur of a moment, he did it.

He was up there, gazing at the world from above. And as he lay in the warm sunlight, with his elegant white fur radiating on display, he wandered why he had not tried it sooner.

So here’s (another) lesson you can learn from a cat: take the risk; the world always looks more wonderful from above.

Life secrets from a cat

Have you ever observed a cat? No, not just seen one, but actually studied how it behaves, its features and characteristics, its every move?

Cats are amazing creatures. There’s a reason they were worshipped as a deity and considered sacred in Ancient Egypt. They are free in every sense of the word. They have their own attitude, and are subject to no-one. Even though you think you own them as your pet, it is you who actually has the privilege of living with a cat. Cats choose who they’ll devote their attention to, when they would like to play, where they want to sleep and how much they feel like eating. Yet, they’ll be there for you whenever you need them, even when you don’t know you need someone, they’ll sit by you (or on you), transmitting their warmth and soothing purr, thus healing you. Cats are true friends.

That is why so much has been said about them. And even more can be learnt from them.

Stéphane Garnier learnt so much from living with a cat that he wrote two best-selling books on how to live and think like one. He acknowledges that cats are calm, observant, wise, elegant, charismatic and proud. In fact, he argues that they have found the secret of how we should all live, regardless of our species, and through his books, diffuses the knowledge drawn from cats into leading a better life.

Cats never give up. And that is perhaps the most important lesson of all.

They understand that fear serves no real purpose, and they believe in themselves and their power to achieve whatever they set their minds on.

They know how to be authentic, maintain their superiority at all times, and how to love themselves.

They can maintain their calm no matter what life (or anyone else) throws at them, are prudent and know how to have fun, even on their own.

They are kind-hearted, simple and communicate what they want.

They’ll forgive you and themselves too for making mistakes, accepting what has passed, while being well aware of how to pursue the lives they want.

Cats can teach us to respect the choices we – and others make – be it what we choose to eat, wear, occupy ourselves with, or believe. Everyone is free to make their own choices. We should respect and stand by them if this would lead us to tranquillity and happiness.

Above all though, cats appreciate how to love with all their hearts, because everything is temporary and we should enjoy every single breathing minute we have.

Perhaps our best life coach would be a cat. If only we too could be more like them.

Cat on fire

She sat on the balcony every morning among the plants breathing in the morning dew and fresh air. It felt nice being outdoors, even if this was on the third floor of a city-centre apartment. This was her ‘outside’.

The days passed calmly, as they do for an indoor cat.

But there was one day when something extraordinary happened.

Her housemates left early in the morning to “run errands”, as they told her. They reassured her they would be back soon as they had left their food baking in that square thing in the kitchen that heated up real fast and they called an ‘oven’.

It was hot that day. She realised it, as there was no fresh air, not even in the shade provided by the plants.

And all of a sudden, it happened.

Black smoke began filling up the house and causing an increasingly suffocating atmosphere.

She found it hard to breathe and snuck further behind the pots of the leafiest of plants. It didn’t work much, as the smoke intensified and there was a pungent smell that hurt her nostrils.

After a while, she heard commotion, but it wasn’t from inside the house. Her housemates had not yet returned.

And then, the sirens. Loud and shrieking, piercing her ears.

The door breaking open and five tall men, dressed heavily with helmets and bearing a long rubber hose that began to shoot out water. Voices shouting at all tones all at once, people moving in and out of the house, staring at her hiding behind the pots.

The smoke dispersed but the smell remained. She tried to go into the house to see who these people were and what happened, and that was when her housemates arrived and she could hear their voices break with agony.

One of them picked her up and clenched her in her arms. She said it was to reassure her that everything was all right and she was grateful nothing had happened to her. But the black cat knew that the hug served more as a comfort for her housemate, to loosen the tension and calm her nerves.

She had survived a fire.

To her housemates, she was the luckiest cat alive.

But to her, they were the lucky ones.

White Ideal

©MCD

You don’t need to call him. He comes on his own when he sees you.

You don’t need to tell him. He feels you in your silence.

You don’t need to ask him for attention. He provides it willingly.

The comfort of feeling his heartbeat sync with yours. Of his gaze staring in your eyes. Of his warmth brush up against you.

He is white. Not as snow. But as a fluffy cotton ball.

With patches of grey so you can spot him in the snow.

With green eyes that glisten in the sunlight.

He doesn’t speak a lot. He doesn’t need to. Because he is the type who doesn’t need words or sounds to communicate.

He has a heart bigger than you can imagine. Because no matter how much you push him away, he always comes back as if you never revoked him. And he wants to share his hugs, his love, his warmth. Because he might seem naïve, but he still thinks everyone he meets is as nice and loving as him.

We would all be so lucky to have such people in our lives.

Shame that such traits can only be found in a cat, though.

Unconditional true bonds

She woke up excited but didn’t know why. It was the third day in a row that little Madeleine woke up before the alarm clock, bright and early without any particular reason. Her nights had been tormented by strange nightmares whose signs she could not read in the morning. But she always tried to retain her optimism, just like her parents taught her. After all, if you smile at life, it will eventually smile back.

In her backyard, the stray cat she had taken under her protection, provided for and fed for the past few months, had a surprise for her: three adorable little kittens. They were all running around playfully in the garden, under the watchful eye of mama-cat.

Madeleine couldn’t help but grin widely at the sight. She was thrilled that her cat family had expanded. It meant more friends, more living creatures with whom to create an unconditional bond.

Mama-cat walked over to where Madeleine was sitting watching them. She meowed and comfortably sat in front of the child’s legs. She began to purr as soon as Madeleine touched her back and began to pet her. A short while after, the three kittens joined in. They were fluffy little creatures, full of awe and excitement with the world.

She looked as they stared into her eyes, their small eyeballs gleaming in the sunlight. If only it were as easy to form unconditional, mutual and lasting bonds with people.

Feline females

©CEAyr

Her name was Saphire because of the colour of her eyes. She was independent, wanted attention but not too much and only on her terms and her mood-swings were unpredictable. If you ignored her, she would find a way to make her presence felt. It usually involved something you held dear.

Last night, she was upset you came in and didn’t devote to her the attention you deprived her of all day. She held that anger until this morning, when you woke up and couldn’t find her.

Until you did. Sitting on your scooter. Waiting. You were supposed to understand.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Cat in a bag

He hadn’t been around for days now and Mrs Claus was getting worried. He was the smallest of the litter, although the feistiest one and,truth be told, he was her favourite.

But it was three days now that he had not shown up, not even during feeding times. She had asked his mother and brothers, but would only get a vague reply from his sister. She was probably just asking for more food.

She looked everywhere for him. In the toy factory, in the elves’ dorms, in the sleigh, in the kitchen, in the cupboards, in the sweet shops, everywhere. He was nowhere to be seen. And the worse part was that no-one else had seen him either.

Mrs Claus decided she had to call for reinforcements.

So she told Santa that her favourite kitten had gone missing.

“What if he’s been catnapped? He was the cutest of the lot,” she said in despair.

“No, no, he is around here somewhere,” Santa tried to reassure her.

They called out his name, rang bells and food plates, but nothing.

They even asked the reindeer, but to no avail.

As snow began to fall heavier outside, Mrs Santa became all the more worried that he was somewhere alone and cold.

But then, just as it happens with all things you look too hard for and then you find them when you stop searching – the little cat appeared on its own.

It was Santa who first spotted him when he saw his toy bag juddering on the sleigh. He knew it was not any of the toy robots, because they had no batteries installed. As he raised the opening of the bag slightly to peek inside, he saw two bright eyes staring back at him. They were accompanied by a faint “meow”. One that Mrs Claus heard, however, and rushed over just in time to see the little lion walk merrily out of the bag, unaware of all the commotion he had caused.

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that cause your heart to skip a few beats. It is only then that  you acknowledge their importance.

Cat attacks

The entire house woke up from the shrills of a mother cat in the back yard. Recently, having given birth, the cat was overwhelmed with mood swings and the urge to protect her newborns at every cost.

The kittens had not yet opened their eyes, but their fur had already formed polychromatic waves making them irresistibly cute to anyone who saw them.

The cat raced across the yard, night or day, at the sight of any intruder. She even attached the previous batch of her own kittens out of fear they would harm the new arrivals.

But, as a true cat, she would always welcome a caress, a tender stroke on her head and under her chin, and food, of course. But that was whenever she felt like it.

Because like a true cat, life happened according to her own rules.

Cat prints

She may have been sleeping when the human brought the cake in the previous night, but she soon realised there was something going on in the house. Phone calls, secret card writing, the sound of wrapping paper… there was a lot of hassle around.  And it wasn’t easy to lie somewhere undisturbed and out of the way. Plus there was the added annoyance that no one was paying any attention to her.

She meowed a few times, but all the people who had somehow gathered in the house simply ‘shooed’ her away with that irritating high-pitched-supposedly-sweet tone of voice.

Surprisingly, the humans went to sleep early that night. Perhaps they were preparing something for the next day. She had to find out what it was. And most of all, she had to discover what had been snuck into the house.

On the kitchen table, there was something inedible like numbers. It didn’t taste very good with the first lick so she left them there. But how do you get into the fridge. A few days ago, she had found a strange way of opening the fridge door. It had taken a lot of effort. Good thing she had spent most of the day sleeping under the living room table. She had all the energy required to jump up and down until that door finally opened. And… there it was. Right in the middle of the fridge. If she stood on her back legs alone she could see it. It was round and white with a few colours. It seemed creamy. If she could just stick her tongue onto it and taste it. But she lost balance and her right paw fell onto the side of the cake. She barely saw her paw print on the white rim before the kitchen lights were abruptly turned on and someone walked in yawning. She managed to quickly sneak under the table and then run out of the room just as the waking person realised the new print on the cake.

The scream woke the entire house up.

But that didn’t stop the humans from having a very loud and festive birthday party.

The cat spent the day under the bed.