Since the very moment I was born, not even my own mother could have guessed how odd, or strange, I would be.
She was perfect in her motherhood, of course; nothing to complain about that. It was only me, among other three babies, who needed ( and really needed ) something that most Cats would like to avoid.
During the whole day -even at lunch time- I couldn't help thinking of something wonderful, yet still unknown to me. Very deep in my mind it was, however; fresh, beautiful and homely. But nothing like that could be found nearby.
In my long periods of sleep it came, thru' strange dreams in which I was diving, and swimming, and jumping joyfully along with the..., the...
But I still hadn't a word for their name, and, nevertheless, in the dream we were linked in heart and soul.
Maybe it's here, where my story really starts, as well as the quest of my unknown true home.

Let me tell you, then, the place where I was born was a small farm with some Horses and Goats, a group of hills to the north and a forest westwards.
It was mid-summer and, through the long June northern evenings a low but continuous noise came sometimes to my ears. Something beyond the woods entered into my mind as if wanting to call me, and my spirit longed to be there, for the noise reminded me in some way that home of my dreams.
But no matter how I wanted to go there... Being so little ( oh, sorry, you still don't know I'm a girl, being my color the grey with black stripes ); so little then, for I was not much more than a year old, that it would take me almost two more years for my mom to let me checking out what was there.
Anyway, I was lucky when from the sky came a little sample of what appeared in my dreams. And as mom stayed on her comfortable rug, my brothers playing or looking through the windows, my tiny fifteen months old body was enjoying the raindrops on the tall green grass. Would you believe that? ...In a matter of seconds I was running in every direction, jumping over the fences, splashing, rolling and dragging myself in the muddy holes now filled with that precious thing which up to that day I only used to drink.
Believing myself crazy, after recovering some of my breath I decided to enter the forest wishing the drops never stopped their falling.
So what was this beautiful thing? ...As hundreds of drops continued falling from the sky, dying on the ground or running on my skin, I could see part of my world in the puddles where the same rain splashed and chimed.
Now anyone could have called me a crazy Cat. Already a long way from home and my family, for the rest of that day I searched under a rainfall the place to which I surely belonged to.

Mom watched me coming back at sunset and called with anxiety mixed with reproach. Then she ran straight to me to carry my wet, disobeying person back to the farm... In her action of taking me, there were both maternal pride and decision. I couldn't move until she finished drying me and even then my mom wouldn't let me go out of her sight.
Being forced to stay there, suddenly I felt tired in body and soul. Under mom's authority the tiredness took control of me and my little body didn't move from that spot until next morning.
What did I dream that night? Well, for me it's still hard to find the words, but if something was there, it was happiness, jumps over the water at incredible speed and a band of white foam. In the dream it was me, plus fifteen of my kind, following the white trace mostly for fun.
Surely you've already guessed who or what were we, but for me, the answer just could appear after a long time... Or never. So I started praying that it would come some day.
Next day dawned sunny... The wind had taken the fresh gift of raindrops far away from me.
Mom called us three times in the morning and four in the evening, to give us her milk and some other things. When she went to take a nap I found a chance to go outside.
Where could have the rain gone? I strove for hearing at least the single plink of a drop... Nothing absolutely. Then, a little downhearted, I went towards the Horses' fence and jumped on it.
There another sign of madness came into my mind, seeming for me a very good idea: a dark-skinned Horse turned to look at me for a few seconds, and when he continued browsing right beside the fence, I gave a short jump to fall on his back.
Now that was a real blind date with the danger! Scarcely the Horse felt my little nails when he turned himself into an equine earthquake. With the combined impulse of his reaction and mine, I flew more than 1,50 mts. to fall out of the fence perimeter... Surely having lost the first of my lives too soon.

It seemed definitely the end of my quest and of every sign of eccentricity in me. For many days I had to stay at home, only sleeping or playing with my brothers, chasing them or being chased. Mom wouldn't have none of us out of her sight... I knew it was well, since we were her children; but if only there was in me the courage to tell her of my dream and then she understood me... One day I should gather the strenght to do that.
One week came and passed, then another; and the chasing game with my brothers had completely lost any thrill for me. To make it worst, in that month it rained unceasingly for two days... I could do nothing but keep watching with sadness my beloved rain slipping by the glass and covering all the field around the farm.
Unexpectedly, mom came to comfort me, licking my face and neck. Then I turned to look at her and saw that for the first time she could understand my feelings.
Right after that, mom and I were watching side by side a Rainbow which lasted about seven minutes; and if I watched it as delighted as speechless, she appeared to have received a message. Because she nudged me gently from the chair to take me outside and walk with me to the very edge of the woods.
Over the grass still wet, beside the dark trees, she rubbed her neck against mine and turned back home, purring loudly to say goodbye.
Sudden loneliness, excitement, fear, freedom, all of it and more burned inside me in the moment of farewell.
'What's more -I thought, this time sadly-, that beautiful lights we saw in the sky are gone, too'.
I had now only a dream to find, beyond a big forest and a green sea. If I walked back home right now, mom would've felt very disappointed.
'Even if she doesn't know what I've been dreaming, mom will keep talking to her remaining children about how her daughter went far off in search of what she wanted above all after her family'.
...And since that wandering daughter wasn't ready to retrace her steps, I entered the forest for the second time.