First off, before you break into the author's note and the story text, I'd like to apologize for posting the first chapter too soon. I took it off, revised it, and now it's back up. This shouldn't happen again, but the first time I posted it, it was choppy and incomplete. Not to mention, I spelled T.S. Eliot's name with two "l's" Haha!! Who does that??
Author's Note: I do not own or have any affiliation with the musical, Cats. I'm just a crazed fangirl who also happens to be a writer. I did take some liberties in creating the original characters and the semi-twisted plot line, but everything else belongs to Andrew Lloyd Webber and T.S. Eliot. You'll be able to find updates and other information regarding this story on my profile as I'm trying to keep the non-story text very low. Gotta follow the rules, ya know?? I might add a few short more short a/n's later on in the story if I find them necessary... but everything else will be on my profile. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it!! Apparently, it was more important to me than getting a summer job, but my family (especially my parents) have been begging me to put some of my writings online and this is one of the pieces I've grown really proud of. Haha. Read and review, please. Constructive criticism is in hot demand, but flames will be ignored. Toodle pip!! XD (couldn't resist...)
Never let a minute lie there on the shelf
For there may be in it all of love's life itself
Little smiles of hope, little drops of tears
Make this thing called love go dancing down the years
- Judy Garland
Chapter One
Introducing Minkle/Life Before London
I trust you know your share about cats. Perhaps you've even been known to speak with a cat on the terms that I am about to speak to you in; you might do so on a weekly, daily, or even an hourly basis. Whatever your history with us may be, I'm sure you've heard that if you listen close enough, a cat just might let you in on a secret or two. Words are unnecessary- for when a cat tells you even the smallest portion of his or her innermost thoughts, you can feel the obscured, static phenomenon and you know that he or she is returning your favor of being held in the highest of respects. Mankind has grown so wise and has a tendency to overlook small creatures, so cats don't usually come clean as much as they used to- but the older I've grown, the more I realize that our stories should eventually be told regardless of the fashion it is told in- this is my story, or better yet our story. All in all, I wouldn't have gotten very far without my magician.
Now a days, I spend nearly all of my time pondering what I experienced in the past and Mistoffelees does as well. We talk a lot about our kittenhoods and life before we met one another. One thing I've noticed about the past, and I believe he's noticed too, is that the further apart you grow from it, the fresher it appears in your mind. I suppose the longing to go back subconsciously keeps you in that mindset, that is if yours is as strong as our longing. Even though neither of us are who we used to be, and have come to realize that no illusion or silly incantation can ever bring us back to those fleeting days of our youth when the possibilities of our minds seemed so unbounded and our hearts were feeble, the hope of a starting new life from scratch is enough to keep us chipper. Rebirth is a heavy topic not only between Mistoffelees and I, but between just about every other set of cats who have been lifelong mates. There will always be an unspoken desire between him and I, that we will be together in our next life and the life after that one, but our spiritual devotions seem to restrain our conversations to get into that detail. Above those inevitable and somewhat childish thoughts, I believe our deepest desire is cherish the adventures we had together in this life for as long as we can.
You may call me Minkle, by the way, Winking Minkle if you wish to sound a bit more formal. Most cats, simply by law, are only addressed by two names and keep the third one under their hats. I, on the other hand have two that I go by, another two that I have gone in the past and then, of course the one that shall remain undisclosed. Each name is like a little stage in my life, each one has a different story and by the time that I'm done telling you this tale, you should be familiar with how, when, and why these names were obtained. But for the sake of avoiding any confusion, Minkle is fine.
Out of all the names I've ever had, I believe that it suits me the best- however, I'm constantly asked if I find it offensive. To clear that question from your mind, no. I suppose that by all means a one-eyed cat would resent being called "Winking Minkle" or anything along those lines, but it is a rather large reflection of who I am and the first thing you need to know about cats is that we take great pride in ourselves even if we have certain peculiarities that we did not choose for ourselves- especially in those peculiarities.
I was born first in a small litter of three to Constanzi the Briner Gallery Cat and Norton Hook, a rather notorious alley cat (well, he was notorious in the small town that I hailed from) behind the art gallery that my mother's mistress owned. I was followed closely by my two younger brothers who became "Fife" and "Ragweed" several weeks after birth around the time my mother gave me my first name, Whispie Moesha that only stuck with me until shortly after I came to London. It was a sweet name, at least for a small kitten; I believed in my youth that it was such a profound and special name my mother must have simply mulled over what she was going to name me for years- even before she met my father. While in reality, Whispie Moesha was a name that she casually plucked out of thin air after she realized that I was strong enough to live and, therefore, worthy of a name.
I learned later on in my life- sadly the hard way, that it is customary for a mother cat to choose the names for her kittens not immediately but a week or so after they are born. Which obviously gives her ample time to choose a name that suits the kitten's hinted personality but also, on a grimmer note, keeps the parents from forming too close of a bond in case something should go wrong. So, to compensate for the time being, they addressed us as "the gray boy", "the gray girl", and "the tailed kitten."
My mother, who was a full blood Siamese, passed down her traditional yet distinctive visage to each of us. Inclusively with highly set cheekbones and a sharply curved chin (which gave our faces a triangular shape), wide ears that were easily half the size of our heads, and almond shaped eyes of periwinkle in its most resplendent shade (I was born with both of them.) While my father, whose appearance wasn't nearly as enticing and slender passed down his short, powerful legs and the tailless characteristic (which was only received by my brother, Ragweed and I.)
Out of the three of us, Fife was by far the most pleasing to the eye. He was small and well built, like my father with a full, thick coat that was the color of freshly fallen snow and looked twice as dazzling when his eyes revealed themselves. His right hind leg was painted black and so were both of his ears (they were a few sizes smaller than Ragweed's or mine) and he was also the only one in the family to be born with a tail, a trait that is seldom inborn to a Siamese-Manx. Ragweed and I were as close to identical as two cats could get when we were born, though over time we took on certain traits of our own. I suppose that if a person, or even another cat were to look at the two of us during such a premature state with no former knowledge of the backgrounds of our parents they would have thought that we were beyond uncanny. Our bodies were both very long and gray and were propped up by a set of stubby little legs. We had small white markings here and there, but they remained inconspicuous for the first few weeks of our lives.
When I was several weeks old old, I began to look less and less like Ragweed and more like my father. My mousy gray coat became just a few shades short of his sable fur and the small white marks became more prominent, including a single white crescent strip over my right eye that ended above my mouth where another splotch of white took shape. Come to think of it, I never really thought too much about that silly little stripe until after my eye got put out, which was coincidentally my right one. But that I will cover much later on.
The older I got, the more my parents realized the resemblance between my father and I wasn't only apparent in our looks and that our spirits were equally as wayward and unruly. I constantly received special attention from them, not out of adoration, but out of the concern that I might get myself in a mess that would be too big to get out of. Even though the alley behind the art gallery was usually vacant, with the exception of a few reeking bags of rubbish, several boxes filled to the brim with glass, and an old green armchair with stuffing coming out of the back, there was the occasional local who would walk his dog or even drive his car down that way, and as you can imagine, that was a rather dangerous situation for a small and helpless kitten.
During early hours of the, when my father was out daunting other cats in the neighborhood who were beginning to stir, I would disappear under my mother's nose repeatedly. Mrs. Pennebaker, my mother's mistress was always kind enough to leave the back door open for us and my family took to sleeping in the spare room that the back door led to. So, naturally, I knew that it would take them a moment or two after waking up to discover my whereabouts. Eventually, she had my younger brothers, who would show to be absolute gems if you were to put their behaviors in comparison to my own, scout me out every time she was trying to doze. I would travel as far as my wobbly little legs would carry me, and once I was off, I was off like a shot, so my poor mother spent her days dashing to the end of the alley and plucking me off the sidewalk by the scruff of my neck before I made my way into the street.
When I learned how to climb, I was a natural born acrobat- well, at least when it came to hoisting myself to the top of objects. I would climb to the top of a box or a windowsill and become petrified when I realized I would eventually have to jump down. So, of course, one of my parents would have to come and pick me up and jump back down. I hated being thought of as disobedient and I think my parents were beginning to realize that. Even though after those few short months of begging for mercy when I did something to displease them, my pleads began to cease, they knew that I was truly sorry for causing them worry.
When I grew a bit more experienced in climbing, I was the first of the litter to make it to the top of the roof. It was an easy climb, all you had to do was follow the drainpipe up one story and you found yourself on top of a red slanted roof that looked over the neighborhood. From my spot on the roof, I felt like I could see the whole world, so, of course I went there quite often when my father wasn't around to reprimand me.
One of the main reasons, I think, why I liked going up there so much was that it looked the path that my father took downtown, I could even see the edge of the glowing neon sign that marked the pub that he frequently escaped to when he wanted to steal left over scraps from the kitchen and kick back with his old time friends. I recognized the pub because once, only a few weeks before my last day living at the gallery, he took my brothers and I there for attention's sake and to give my mother the night off. It was an exciting place and by all means, I should have enjoyed the company of the cheerful humans who kneeled down to pat me on the head and the handful of cats I met who were on good terms with my dad, but after an hour or two, I grew bored of the pub and tired of the attention that I was receiving. "Why she's the living spit of old Norton Hook!" I recall several cats saying, and a few others suggested that I would eventually become a drifter like him when I began to make a fuss about how I wanted to see the other places that he went to in the evenings and not stay at that "dreadful pub" for a second longer.
We had a lot of adventures similar to that one. Some were even worse. But the Briner Gallery and my family who cared for me so deeply (even though I didn't really realize it at the time), were a very small part of my life- and the real story begins when I wandered just a little bit too far from home.