THE CAT iS THERE!

 

 

The following entry is taken from the diary called Dreams.

 

And a huge black cat is there in my room, like the one in The Master and Margarita. However, it doesn’t walk on two legs, like the pigs in Animal Farm. But it talks unlike any other cat.

The Cat is there on my bed, and I can feel sweat gather on my forehead as it stares into my black eyes and calls out my name. How does the cat know my name? What world has the Cat come from? What is this Cat? I’m drowning in the ocean of questions, these and many more. And suddenly, like on a clue to start, the Cat tells me that it will take me out of the dark that I am living in or I am lying in. It tells me it will show me the world. My questions are still unanswered and I drown deeper. The questions question my sanity and I see myself getting trapped in the web of fear. I argue. I tell the Cat that I don’t believe a word it says and I ask how can it bring me out of my darkness(that is if I have one), when the Cat itself is black, black fur. I look away from the piercing gaze of the Cat, I look away in hatred and try to hide myself in the blanket but, I can hear the shrill and annoying voice of the Cat, “I don’t like humans either but here I am talking to you. I am black because I clean your dirt, you see my blackness and get intimidated and I see your clean and smooth skin, I see your disguise, your mask, and I want to help.”

The Cat stands there in the balcony peeling an orange. I watch the spectacle, I am terrified. I want to run away, but I stay. I stay and watch. I watch the claws working delicately on the orange and the stare, keen. The Cat doesn’t eat the orange but throws it off, I watch and wonder at the foolishness and have a question building up in my throat. And the Cat says, “Hey, this is what you’ve done to yourself, your life, just when the time came for you to taste it, enjoy it, savor it, feel the wine in your tongue, the bloom in your veins, you threw it away, you wasted a lot in picking it and peeling it, seeing it and stealing it, and all that is left is the skin, now keep it, preserve it, save it and showcase it. This is Orange, the color of sun, the color of day, the color of fire, the color of desire, and the color you lack.”

The Cat is walking on the road. I am walking a few steps behind it. I am a stalker. The Cat’s gait is confident and it walks with a clear and rational head. I follow, afraid and nervous. It stops in front of a drycleaner and looks at it, like an enthusiast looking at a painting. Decoding. I have a larger painting to decipher. A painting with a big black delinquent Cat. What was the Cat going to propound? A person’s behavior is obvious. Just like we say we know a person, but he changes each day, we only know the person for what he was the day we met him, nothing more. Stop exaggeration. You know nothing. The Cat spoke, in a soft tone, “I wish the drycleaner could clean my black fur. I wish it could wash away all the darkness and sins I have gathered on my coat. I wish you, Kashiv, cared for my wishes like I care for them. I wish you knew the color of your fur. I wish you wore a clean you each day. I wish you realized that sweeping your floor and hiding the dirt from the scrutinizing eyes is not cleanliness, but filth in its filthy best. I wish you knew cleaning and covering are different. I wished you were naked. I wish you were me.”

And when a bolt of lightning struck me in my heart, I knew the jolt would presage a catastrophe, an affliction.

The Cat wasn’t there.

The orange sun was out of the cloud covering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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