1Ten Thousand Drops of Cat Rain
The cats required a curtain raiser before coming onstage—they would never so much as make an appearance without a bit of fanfare. Ahead of the rain came a little wind, only a smidge, like the sudden lurch of missing your footing on the stairs. Not too much force, no strong gusts, everything just a little askew. The kitties needed to hold back some of their energy for play.
The wind rose, and the kitties took advantage of the occasion to burrow into the shadowy clouds, concealing themselves behind the curtain. Amped up and full of excitement, ears dancing like beams of light, they darted here and there, countless glowing specks, riding the clouds toward the stage.
The stage in question was directly overhead, a patch of sky, neither near nor far. Look up and it would seem to be right there, but try to touch it and you’d soon realize it was out of reach. Such a gigantic swath of sky, I could have walked anywhere and still remained within its ambit. Dark clouds wafted closer, the curtain rustled open, and an unmissable performance began.
The kitties had set the stage for a grand presentation of cat rain, ten thousand drops in all.
From a distance, I watched the cats soaring ahead atop their clouds, fast as galloping horses. People saw this and hastened indoors, heads lifted to the sky. I happened to meet a cat’s eyes with a flash of recognition but couldn’t recall where we’d met before.
All this was back before I had a cat, before I had any idea where cats came from. The sky grew darker, the clouds lowered, and an urgent wind filled the building, foretelling a bout of cat rain. An abrupt pitter patter pitter patter. The show began in a flurry, no warning, no prologue. In the blink of an eye, every cat plummeted in raindrop form. Splish splosh splash. All done in a few seconds. No one had time to react. It felt as if the storm had ended before it began.
The shortest downpour of this rainy season, so brief I barely got wet. I wished I’d been closer to center stage so I could have gotten a closer look at the cat rain.
Ten thousand drops of cat rain mean ten thousand kitties. Rain from the cats, cats in the rain. Cats and rain, one and the same. The cat rain vanished as it plopped onto the ground, leaving behind countless paw prints.
Chapter 2
Dream Cat
The air was cool after the cat rain. I slept soundly that night.
I dreamed of a cat tunneling out of my ear, expanding all the while, faster than the eye could see. Dark-brown fur with scattered strands of gold. In the dream, I called him Doughball.
Doughball and I got on right away. He didn’t show any fear and kept pulling pranks on me. His expansion was out of control, and for a while, I was worried he would grow too large for the room to contain him. Could Doughball’s belly, round as it was, be filled with some kind of gas? I thought of pricking it with a needle to see if it would deflate but couldn’t bring myself to. After all, when I stroked Doughball, he was a flesh-and-blood cat—I didn’t want to hurt him. And so I just let him inflate, bouncing around like a rubber ball.
Each day, Doughball went through his repertoire of tricks: flying leaps, high jumps, tail-biting, chasing himself. He was a springy thing, and I kept failing to catch him. Trying to make him stop, I had to chase him around the entire flat, jumping up and down like a monkey.
Doughball reached the size of a television and abruptly stopped growing. I put my hand to my chest and let out a sigh of relief. Phew.
Even though Doughball was no longer expanding, he was still several times the size of a regular cat and ate an extravagant amount. Our household expenses soared thanks to the bottomless pit that was his stomach. Husband grumbled that his wages were all going to Doughball. Yet when Doughball had eaten his fill and lay next to Husband, legs flopping in every direction, Husband was so delighted he couldn’t stop beaming. So cute, he would murmur, forgetting his grievance.
Doughball scampered around in front of me each day, his frolicking as entertaining as any TV program. Husband and I had fallen out of the habit of watching television several years ago, but Doughball made us remember what it was like to settle down together in front of a show. Every episode was directed and performed by Doughball. We watched him climb, leap, run like a mad thing. Rather simple and repetitive programming, but we never tired of it. Watching Doughball perform became our regular postprandial pastime.
After each show, Doughball had to eat in order to replenish his strength and round out his belly again. Sometimes he would then nestle against my chest for a nap, snoring loudly. I enjoyed our snuggling, but his bulk pressed down on me till I could hardly breathe. “Get off,” I would say. “You’re too heavy!” He invariably ignored me and stayed put, though I sometimes wondered if he was just pretending to be asleep.
When I woke up from this dream, my chest felt warm, and I was sure that was where Doughball had been.
Chapter 3
Plant Cats, Get Cats
I never used to pay much attention to cats as a species—you could say I lacked an understanding of them. Then Doughball began visiting me in my dreams, and though our time together was brief, it was enough to cultivate a feline appreciation within me. I didn’t want to leave Doughball, but dreams didn’t come every day, and he wasn’t always in them.
The day came that I realized I hadn’t dreamt of Doughball for a while and missed him very much. Whenever I ventured out, I couldn’t stop myself from scouring trees and bushes, hoping a cat would pop out, even though I knew it wouldn’t be Doughball.
Once I started seeking out cats, I naturally saw many of them. It turned out there were plenty of kitties on the ground: in flower beds, in the mud, in fields, beneath trees. . . . They were everywhere, sauntering around in vast numbers, as if they had sprung from the earth itself.
Kitties are like any other vegetable. Plant melons, get melons. Plant beans, get beans. Plant cats, get cats.
In this world, there are those who plant cats, and those who pick them.
The cat planters have only to scatter cat seeds on the soil. No need for watering, fertilizing, or tending. Come spring, there’ll be a harvest of countless kitties. And it’s true—when spring arrives, the number of cats increases overnight. Once they’ve squirmed from the soil, they mature quickly.
Spring is cat-harvest time, the best season to pick them.
The springtime sun grows more plentiful each passing day. Cats emerge, alongside all of nature, as they return to life and everything is renewed, with no distinction between house cats and strays. They’ve all just gained consciousness and are now accepting their lives as cats.
The kitties stretch out their tiny paws and gingerly probe the warmth of the sun. Side by side, they sprawl out on the fuzzy carpet of the earth. In good weather, you’ll see cats energetically opening themselves up and lying flat to soak up the sunlight. ...
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