Felis Catus

I always liked cats. Always thought there was something compelling about a cat; something intriguing, the way they were always tranquil, always… above. Above everything, above any worry. And so one day one of them compelled me for real. I’m not sure at what moment I began to realise. It started with the pose.

He showed up to me one day; showed up at my doorstep, like he was waiting for me when I arrived. Since the beginning, he acted like he had always been there, like he had always been my pet. I couldn’t think of a name for him – it was weird to name him, who seemed to have always been there. It was as if I tried to suddenly change the name of my pet cat of years. So I left him without one. Also it seemed like I never needed a name for him, or he a name. Always the same pose.

It took me a while to realise that he didn’t meow. Only after much time did I realise I had never heard a single sound from him. A meow, a growl. Always there, still, sitting, gazing. The pose and the gaze. He gazed a gaze of one who sees. Who knows. Who understands. He looked around a room like he had built it. Everytime I arrived at a room in which he was, he was sitting, looking somewhere.

The only moments in which he was not sitting were when he was walking, soon to sit down on another spot. I never saw him doing any activity like eating or drinking water either.

I put food in the pot, later the pot was empty. Sometimes he was hungry; I know because sometimes he would sit by the pot and look at me intensely, but when I put the food in it, he didn’t eat: he went on looking at me as if waiting for me to leave.

I would leave, later when I got back I would find the pot empty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him lying down either. The only time I saw him break the austere pose to an end other than walking a few steps and presently sitting again was when a rat showed up.

I walked around the house lost in my thoughts, I walked slowly and stepped lightly. I appeared at the threshold of the living room and stopped, I was thinking about I don’t know what. When I noticed it, he was there, on the terrace; sitting, of course. He seemed also lost in thoughts, because he looked fixedly to any place and didn’t see the rat that felt the ground and smelled the air, walking errantly and insecure, but getting more tranquil at each instant because of the absence of threats.

Sitting, he was so still that the rat must have thought him a statue and didn’t pay him any mind. I found the scene charming and smiled; it might be that I made some sound, because, sitting, he looked at me and, noticing I was there, went on to mechanically walk towards the rat. Lazily he reached his paw, as if trying to grab the rat –who saw him and, jumping because of such a fright that it was painful to see, vanished from sight– but didn’t seem very convincing. I didn’t care. Still with the paw reached out, frozen in place, he looked at me expectantly.

“You’re a normal cat,” I affirmed. I don’t remember if I wanted to dissuade myself of the notion that there was anything strange in the scene, or comfort him telling him not to worry: I didn’t suspect him. He nodded thankful and went back to sitting, now with no rat in sight. Pursuance of the pose.

From then on a tacit agreement between us happened, we could be more relaxed with one another, not needing to pretend too much. I think that was when I began to realise. I had already accepted that he liked to sit. I respected that. I wanted him to be comfortable. When he arrived in a room I always offered him all the options of places to sit. If I was lying on the sofa and he arrived I stood up and, standing, waited for him to choose where he’d sit. Sometimes he looked at me and with a thanking nod climbed up onto the sofa and sat there. Sometimes he didn’t pay me much attention and sat on the floor. Once, I took a while to sit again on the sofa and he glanced at me with certain impatience. I noticed he didn’t like it very much when I acted excessively like a servant.

Recently he was sitting by the living room door which gave way to the terrace, staring at the front door and looking frequently at the clock on the living room wall. He awaited someone, I realised.

“Good,” I thought, “this way I’ll meet someone and won’t feel as alone, it’s been a while that I don’t go out.” I didn’t remember the last time I left the house. “But what if it’s another cat?” I thought and laughed right after at my own thought. Always in the pose, on the terrace.

At 4pm someone rang the doorbell. I had made my neck used to looking down, so that when I opened the front door, I saw the visitor that awaited, sitting, in front of my house. It looked like mine, it had greyish fur, but chalkier around the neck. Looking at the visitor who, sitting, looked at me; I almost didn’t notice the pair or legs that waited behind him. I followed the length of the legs, up, up, to the top. She looked like me I reckoned. But I couldn’t be sure, I didn’t know what appearance exactly I had at the moment.

We sat on the living room sofa while the cats conferred in the kitchen in silence. They had walked by us without hesitation, going straight to the kitchen. Mine had looked at me and, with a nod, had signalled that we should wait there. The visitor hadn’t broken his gaze from the way ahead for a second, leaving the girl in an unknown house’s living room without any ceremony.

“Yours is not as gentle as mine, I think,” I said. She looked at me, with the same eyes as myself and didn’t say anything, just agreed. “What a shame.”

When they showed up at the door, we knew that it was time for something important. When they walked towards the front door, we followed them.

It was night and there was no one in the street. I must have gotten distracted on the way because I didn’t recognise the street in which we were, nor the house in front of which we stopped. Mine nodded for me to go on ahead, hers nodded for her to stay.

“I think you’re not ready yet,” I said; she didn’t say anything.

Mine went ahead and was already entering the house, going through the door that, somehow, was open. I don’t remember the route we took, I just remember being in the yard at the back of the house, in front of a person who looked at me frightened. There, I began to remember. Looking at the frightened expression, I remembered my fright; seeing his fear, I remembered my fear; the fear I felt and the fright I had, when it had been me. I remember the terror of losing control, the pain I felt. I remember the sensation of feeling invaded. Controlled. I remembered the times I tried

to scream, but didn’t have a mouth, which preserved my throat from damage, but caused my head to ache a lot. I remembered not understanding. I remembered how many times I asked myself “What is it that he wants from me?” and, right on cue, the figure in front of me asked me:

“What do you want?” He said, trembling. “You can take everything you want.”

It was curious seeing him there, I could understand how he felt. I saw myself in him; I understood his trembling legs, they had once been mine; I understood his panting breathing, it had once been me panting.

And so I got it. It really was very pleasurable. What the creature wanted in that moment, what I wanted now, was already being given us there; and it was delicious. How it was savoury. And the more he trembled and asked what I wanted, the more he gave us what we wanted, just like I gave him what he wanted when it had been my turn. The pleasure I felt at looking at the figure in front of me almost made the memories look pleasurable. The cat, in a jump, landed on the figure’s shoulder, the claws were out, being buried into the skin, the blood flooded out and stained the clothes. But the figure didn’t dare look to the side, it looked fixedly to me, I wondered if maybe he hadn’t realised the cat on his shoulder. I don’t know with what appearance I should have been for him to look at me like that. When I got very close, was when I extended my hand over his face. Once again the question “What do you want?”

“Your fear.”

[Note: this is a translation from the original in Portuguese; to find the original and more of this author’s writing, go to metamorfema.tumblr.com.]