They Call Me "Schrodinger"
Two "diary entries" with a cats-eye view of life. "Enigma" episode.
They call me Schrodinger. I am a male orange and white tabby cat.
I have lived with my person for five summers, and she has treated me well for the most part. She speaks to me and sometimes touches me when I wish her to. My person touches my fur and scratches under my chin. This is pleasurable to me. If I please I flip on my back and stretch out, and she scratches my belly also. She calls me strange and wonderful names and speaks with a soft voice. When she does this I lower my eyelids and look at her. She calls this "love eyes." Sometimes I lie on the arm of my chair and tuck in my paws and lower my head and am content with that.
She who calls herself my owner – Sam -- gives me dry, crunchy bits that taste good, and fresh water in bowls. She also gives me other food such as cheese and pieces of chicken. Soft food that smells and tastes of fish and meat is sometimes given.
I used to find food that would flee from me, also – the vole and the mouse. Sometimes the sun moved far while I crouched near a hole. I did not put a paw down the hole, only waited. When the food appeared, I attacked it with my strong jaws and ripped the meat from the bones. It was warm and good. I brought gifts of food to my person, but she did not accept them. I will bring no more.
I can not bring more because I am now what is called an "indoor cat." This is so because my person is often away for nights and days. Another woman feeds me then. The food is good, but the attention is not. What is my due is not given, and my world has been made small.
The soft, moist grass no longer bends beneath my paws. I cannot walk where I will, where I live or where others of my kind live, nor do I rest outside on the warm gray stones or the hood of a car newly stilled. The tall white door never opens at my bidding.
Instead, I sit on the sill of my window and raise my nose to the scent and feel of soft breezes, and watch. I watch for those who trespass my land. When I see them I give voice to show my displeasure. At first they stop, but then they walk on. One time I gave voice to a flock of black birds pecking about the grass of my land, but they showed no fear of me – no fear of Schrodinger, the Great Hunter.
In the winter, when the sun is weak and the air no longer warm, and the cold white stuff covers the hard ground, I lie for many long hours in the warm house, and rest and dream. Sometimes I dream of long ago, of soft small bodies near me, of warmth and my mother's milk.
When she is home, she who calls me her cat often urges me to her bed. Sometimes I do go, stretching out on the warm blankets, where she scratches and strokes me until her hand rests heavy on my side. Sometimes I choose not to go. I do as I wish. Am I a dog, that I should obey?
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Some time has passed since my last words.
I live now in a land of plenty, among gentle folk called the Nox, and I sometimes choose to roam the forests wherein. My person is now Narim, who has loved and been loved by Sam. I have been given as a token of that love.
This is how it became so.
One day I was taken by my person, Sam, to a place where no other animal dwelt. It was a place of gray, with no light within like the sun that so often warmed me at my home. She showed me to one called Narim as an example of something from her world. This was offensive to me, as I am not a thing to be displayed at whim.
I was a curiosity and an amusement to the man, who had not seen any animal for generations of his kind. At first I did not wish the feel of his hands upon my fur, but soon I sensed him to be a kind and gentle man, and then his ministrations were welcome. It was like in days past, when my person gave to me what is every cat's right.
It was time to leave this world, the only one I had ever known. The man Daniel, my new person, Narim, and my new people had gathered in what is called the "gate room." A woman called Lya, a woman with nest-like hair, strange to me, appeared from within the water ring. Bad men with what is called guns tried to stop us, but Lya made us to disappear. Then we went through the watery ring to my new home. It was a thing that caused my fur to bristle, but I was safe within the arms of Narim.
This is my story. I am Schrodinger, the cat.