For almost three months I explored the forest, until every tree was well known to me. The first weeks I felt scared, of course, but one night that the rain came back, not even many thunders would've made me run frightened. I simply watched the lightnings on a tree bough, feeling in the best of chairs; and when the raindrops started their song I descended quickly to enjoy them.
There you could see me, lying by the tree in a sphinx position, with my beloved rain falling all over and around me; after a while I rested on one side and stretched. The pearled drops seemed to hit the grass with renewed strenght. It lasted half an hour, to turn into a light, yet continuous drizzle.
In what was part of my world, new thoughts came into my mind.
What was it really part of? ...Enjoying the rain this way, where could take me to? What was waiting beyond my own knowledge?
I'd have to leave the wood to find the answers. This particular thought came many hours later, as the first lights of day were already visible.
The dawn was grey, cold and cloudy; maybe it would rain again. Nothing of it could bother me now.
Now talking about lunch, if you asked me what was my meal made of, all that time, I would answer: two or three Squirrels and four unfortunate Birds which I found on the ground, surely wounded or dead because of the storm.
But I must confess you something: for some strange reason, not the Squirrels nor the Birds were much of my liking. Instead, my sense of taste was looking for a prey still unknown to me.
'So if there's a sea -I said myself in a meow-, it's not made of grass, but of mysteries... And all of them linked to me! Or by any chance to my dreams? I'd like to know right now!'
And what was I doing there, anyway? Even after lying on the wet grass under the rain, there were still those tall trees surrounding me. But where could I search for something without having seen it in all my life?
In my heart a feeling of desperation began growing slowly. Then, remembering my pray about the answer I wanted, unspoken words of hope took shape again in my mind.
Answers would come, albeit in the way and moment most unexpected. About seven days later, and two after another rainy day that this time didn't delighted me as much as the others, for the first time since I came to this forest I could hear that loud, continuous noise, now much nearer.
The mysterious noise reminded me strongly the rain, though it seemed to fall from nowhere and sing along the horizon.
Finally, beyond the western edge of my forest and at the end of a smooth ravine, I saw the source of that rain-like noise: a river was running southwards.
My first big discovery was there, before my very eyes. The river had grown because of the last rains (indeed, I knew about swellings only several months later), but the opposite bank was perfectly visible.
Now, what a wonderful place! There was hardly something better than that, if I knew a little about the world.
If mom were here to see me, so happy! If my brothers could enjoy the water with me!
But the thought of force them never crossed my mind and, however, if they would find the same pleasure I could feel, when being completely wet, surely no one of them would like to miss this experience.
While a little part of me wished that all of them were right there, my heart was full of joy when I swam in the watercourse; there I went to left and right; then two mts. under the surface; then learning about the stream and how to use it; then swimming a long distance up and downstream. It was maybe one hundred times better than staying under the raindrops, though of course I never forget how much I liked the rain.
After two hours of playing in each part of the stream, I left it to rest on a bank of sand almost as wet as me.
The thought that nothing could be superior to that, as it's explained before, kept me by the river for three or four more months; the dawnings beyond my woods became part of every tree at the Fall season.
Swimming in the middle of the stream (at least two times each day), soon I was an experienced Fish-Catcher. Even in my first days of exploration, you would have seen me reaching the middle of the river, taking a bit of air and going right to the sandy bottom, where small Fishes tried to hide under the pebbles or among some acquatic plants.
But, not knowing what to do about me, they always ended in my stomach if I wanted to catch them.
Now do you remember that Birds and Squirrels were not of my liking? Well, here was what I liked for a meal above all.
If mom would see me now... I don't know how many times this thought came into my mind. But of course, while I knew that she wasn't anywhere but the farm, she never could guess exactly where her wandering daughter was.
The moments that I most missed her and my brothers, were generally when the dawns blended with yellow-colored leaves covering the ground among trees.
When the last leaves had just fell from their branches -and after a week in which it rained as even I wouldn't have expected, for more than two days-, the Fall left his kingdom to the Winter.
Next morning I had just reached the eastern bank getting out of the water when a wind came thru' my forest whistling and singing; it was too cold for my wet hair. Then, doing what seemed to me more reasonable, I went back to the river and stayed -in the middle of a puddle- in my favorite sphinx position.
Only with my head and neck out of the water, in this way I found that if the weather was very cold, puddles were a good place to be a little warmer.
My new big discovery made me purr while because of the wind hundreds of lil' drops were running down my face or falling from my whiskers.
So having found this beautiful place, could I go on looking something else? Then I said to myself: 'If there's indeed anything much bigger than this river, well, the years of my life are still long enough for me to find it '.
However, my strange dreams didn't stop coming. Just two days later, a new one would come in which we -the Swimming Group- now seemed to dance above the water... The first time I saw my home of dream from outside; it looked like a stream without any limit except for the coast. An incredibly long coastline where the water ran on the wet sand, coming and going as endlessly as swiftly.
A great flock of Birds was flying not far from the shore; some of them would launch themselves into the water to come out after a few seconds with a fish inside their mouth.
All this images appeared so vividly in my dream, that I thought I should've known where this place was.
But it wasn't true; and if I left the river without any sign which took me in the right direction, it would've been no more than a long but fruitless quest.
Now back to myself, with the water of my puddle covering most part of me, after all I couldn't spend there the entire day, no matter how charming it would seem to me.
Without stopping my purr, I walked to sleep on the grass letting the wind dry my hair; I wouldn't dive again in the stream for fishing until it was evening.
By the way... ( Shhhh, it's one of my little secrets ), through all my days beside the river, this bed of grass was for me what the rug was for my mom, there, in the farm.
So I slept there more than two hours. When my body got a little cold, in my awakening, I walked for a while following the coastline to the north.
Suddenly, one day -a week after the new dream I told you about-, something big came long after midday, swimming by the waterway, going southwards.
'Hey, it's My river' -I said to that thing immediately. But I stood watching until it was out of sight.
The rest of that afternoon I laid on the grass, meditating in what I had seen, not far from the water, under a soft rain which later got stronger.
'What could it be?' -My young mind was wondering. 'Could mom know the answer? And anyway, what was it?'
Only getting into the floating thing I'd find some of the answers.
Then I took a walk in the woods, still under the thick rain, to a rock half buried in the ground and covered with mold, where I sat looking to the east with some nostalgia; for in that direction was the farm.
Obviously I missed them all, mom and brothers, yet my own choice had taken me there, and if they were thinking I was happy, it had to be true.
By sunset when rain went away I entered the river in search of Fishes. Near the sandy bottom I found up to three of a size big enough.
'If mom could see me now...' -Thought my mind for the 100th time or more. She had just started teaching us to hunt when I left home and now here I was, catching under the surface a prey harder to trap than Birds. She would be very proud of me.
On the other hand, this very act of going under water to find my lunch made me wish that I could live in the river for the rest of my life... But still, it was no more than a beautiful dream.
So I came out again from there with a little sigh, to spend that night between my river and the forest.