"You are not what you seem..."
I never expected this to happen. I never thought I'd become an urban legend, a strange creature that was once human. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Well.
It all started when I went to see CATS for the first time, when I was sixteen...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Are we there yet?" my ten-year-old sister, Rachel, asked for the eightieth time.
"We're not even in New York yet, hon," my mom said while trying to decipher a map.
We were going to see CATS, because Rachel was absolutely crazy about it. She was always jabbering on about Mr. Mist-in-the-storm or somebody putting a bomb by a ballerina. So after about two weeks of this, our father agreed to take her to see CATS on Broadway(this was two years before it closed, of course) in the summer.
So here it was, June, and our parents decided that they both wanted to go see CATS with Rachel, and I had to go with them as well. I had to go, but I didn't have to enjoy it.
"Are we there yet?" Rachel asked again.
"Obviously not," I hissed at her.
"Shut up, I wasn't asking you," Rachel shot back at me. "You're just mad because they're taking me to see CATS."
I didn't follow the logic, but oh well. "No, I'm mad because I have to ride in a car from Kentucky to New York just so that you can see a musical that you've practically memorized anyway."
"Baby, baby," Rachel started taunting me. "Electra's a baby."
I ignored her and stared out the window at the passing farms. Slumped in my seat, I started devising plans to get out of seeing CATS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I didn't get out of seeing CATS after all, so I tried to find a seat that was inconspicuous. I wound up sitting right next to the spot where Electra, who Rachel keeps claiming is my namesake, comes out in Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats. Electra looked right at me, for some reason.
And winked at me.
I sat straight up in my chair. Perhaps I had been dozing, but no, I was awake. Everything was as normal as could be.
I decided that I had just been daydreaming, but I sat up and watched the musical. As musical's go, this one wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was good.
The truth? I fell in love with it.
And the change began.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I got home a few days later, I got online first thing to find out what I could. I found out that there are literally thousands of CATS fansites on the web. I searched through them, reading fanfics, looking at art, and chatting. I joined two RPG's, began six fanfics, and three attempts(underline attempts about eight times) to draw Electra, who was fast becoming my favorite. I absorbed what I could of CATS, took a break, and began again, finishing one of my fanfics, drew a decent picture of Electra, and began planning my CATS costume(I was going to be Electra, of course).
That's when I noticed it. I started paying attention to the cat food and litter commercials. I laughed it off, but I realized then that something weird was going on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As the weeks went by, I was more and more into CATS. By September, I knew every step to every dance and every word to every song, even Growltiger's Last Stand(whose dance moves and lyrics were posted on a few websites).
When I turned eighteen, I monitored the news for info on CATS closing. I cried when it was announced that CATS would close in June, cheered when it was postponed to September, and got my parents to take us to see CATS one more time. This time, I got a chance to meet the actress who played Electra, and she taught me a few things about being in CATS, in case I ever joined a cast. I finished my costume in mid-October, and wore it on Halloween. Everyone knew who I was, including people who'd never seen any part of CATS.
At the age of nineteen, I left for college, as well as hoping to see CATS in London. I did, with some money from my parents. After that, I got a job as a typist and went to see CATS again. I admired Electra's portrayer, but it was Etcetera who drew me to her this time. I learned her dance as well, and began auditioning as a Chorus Cat. I took acrobatic and dance lessons of all sorts, and finally broke my way into CATS as an understudy CC. I worked hard, cut back on my college classes, and started dieting. It was a hard job, and early on I had to quit my typing job to concentrate on dancing and college. My roommates complained that I was singing in my sleep. One of them even recorded me mumbling, "Keen to be seen...such as Plato, Admetus..." and I finally started sleeping on the couch. I was twenty-two by this time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I finally made it into the play, when a Chorus Cat fell down a flight of stairs and broke her leg. I was so nervous the first performance, but instinct took over(plus I had no solo lines or moves, so I could concentrate on staying with the others). Eventually, I moved up to Etcetera's part, and understudied Electra.
Dancing became my life. I would have dropped out of college, but I wanted to graduate. So after I completed four years, I left college to be in CATS. I got my own(tiny) apartment.
That's when I started noticing little things about me changing. I tended to eat more meat, less vegetables, and sometimes felt tempted to catch the mice that lived in the run-down neighborhood I lived in rather than set out traps. My legs got hairier, but I thought nothing of that.
Until the fur turned reddish.
The first time I noticed it, I figured it was just a chemical reaction to some new lotion I was putting on my legs, but after quitting using everything on my legs except shaving cream, and even eventually that, I had to give up using the stuff. I was glad that my Etcetera costume covered my legs.
Eventually, I moved up to Jellylorum's understudy, and noticed other strange things about me. My hair was growing erratically, sticking out in some places and pointing straight up in others. I was twenty-six.
I was Jellylorum and understudy to Demeter, when my paws-er, hands-began growing fur, a sort of gold color. I started wearing gloves constantly, but the fur started growing completely up and down my arms. I had to wear long-sleeved shirts in the middle of June, not to mention an oversized hat to cover up my hair. The only place I looked semi-normal was at the theater, when the fur blended with my costume.
I was twenty-six still and playing Demeter when I suddenly realized that I was growing, of all things, a TAIL. I didn't leave my new home(except to perform CATS), and started wearing my Demeter costume home, so as not to attract any strange looks.
I was twenty-seven and Bombalurina, when I realized that I hardly needed to wear a costume anymore. My entire body was covered in red-and-gold fur, my skin on my face had paled until it was completely white, and what people thought was a mustache were actually whiskers.
At the age of twenty-eight, people started noticing me even more. The media started focusing on me, because I was never seen in public, if I wasn't in a performance at the moment.
"Look! It's Electra Starr," the newspaper reporters and TV personnel would say. They'd crowd around me, attempting to get an interview, until finally it got too unbearable.
I was walking home from the last performance of CATS before May(it was April), and the media was completely surrounding me. Finally, the guy who played Admetus came out and helped me get away from the press.
"Hey, Electra, why don't you just give them an interview?" he asked me. "What would it matter?"
"It would matter," I said softly(because I had a HUGE crush on Mark Icatha, who played Admetus), "Because I'm...well...not-quite-human," I finished in a rush. Mark stared at me.
"What?" he said, as if not believing me.
I pulled off my gloves and the Etcetera wig and looked at him. He gasped, and the car swerved.
"My God!" he said. "You're...You're a..."
"A freak," I finished. "I know."
"No, you're just...just...just like me," he muttered. "I should have noticed it before."
"Just like you?" I asked, by now totally confused.
Mark pulled off his wig, and took off his human-looking makeup. I gasped.
He was a cat too.
"Oh my God," I whispered, hardly daring to believe it.
"Come on, I'll take you home," he said, and grinned.
He drove me to a run-down part of town, opened a gate, and walked in.
"Hey Mastega!" a voice said. "Glad you're back from the performance. But where's your wig and what happened to your makeup?"
Mark/Mastega stepped to the left, revealing me, still in my Etcetera unitard and makeup, my gloves and wig being in the car.
"Oh, another performer-turned-cat?" a grayish looking tom said cheerily. "Nice to meet you. Who might you be?"
"Electra," I whispered.
"No, I mean in real life," he said.
"Electra Starr."
"Not the one who's playing Bombalurina?" he said. "We've heard about you on the news.
"Yeah, that's me," I said softly.
"Okay then, let's introduce you to the others in this junkyard. I'm Andestanda, if you're wondering." He led me to the junkyard's clearing. There were seven cats there.
"Okay, there's Persephone-"a gold-and-black cat who looked a lot like Demeter-"Bandali"-a gray-and-gold spotted tom-"Mirada"-a black queen with the most piercing eyes-"Sendela"-a brown queen-"Victor"-a completely white tom with green eyes-"Misha"-a muddy red queen with orange stripes-"Asimber"-leopard-spotted tom with a short yellow tail-"and Sagelita," the short beige queen with a jagged orange stripe down her back. I nodded my hello's.
"Okay tribe, this is-" he looked at me questioningly, and I knew I had to choose a new name. I chose one that I would easily remember.
"This is Starr. Welcome her as you would your own daughter."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two years later...
I was still in CATS, although I was back to playing Etcetera. Mastega was now Asparagus(the younger). We had two new cats in our tribe, Arrina and Zanthe. I watched out for another possible member of our tribe, and eventually I found one-a young performer, playing a CC, and going under the name of "Maria Eleta." I noticed that the exact same things happened to her, and alerted Mastega, who brought her to the junkyard.
Then one day, Victor(who was in another production of CATS and sometimes had to leave for months at a time) brought home another cat, queen four years younger than me. She was black and white, with a grayish patch on her right leg. It took me only a moment to recognize her.
"Mecetra?" I asked, using her old CATS name. "Is that you?"
"Yeah," she said, not recognizing me at first. Then she took another look at me. "Electra? That's you?" I nodded, and we rushed towards each other, hugging each other sa tightly as we could.
"Who...what?" Mastega asked.
"This is my little sister. Mecetra, AKA Rachel," I said, tears running down my cheeks.
THE END
I never expected this to happen. I never thought I'd become an urban legend, a strange creature that was once human. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Well.
It all started when I went to see CATS for the first time, when I was sixteen...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Are we there yet?" my ten-year-old sister, Rachel, asked for the eightieth time.
"We're not even in New York yet, hon," my mom said while trying to decipher a map.
We were going to see CATS, because Rachel was absolutely crazy about it. She was always jabbering on about Mr. Mist-in-the-storm or somebody putting a bomb by a ballerina. So after about two weeks of this, our father agreed to take her to see CATS on Broadway(this was two years before it closed, of course) in the summer.
So here it was, June, and our parents decided that they both wanted to go see CATS with Rachel, and I had to go with them as well. I had to go, but I didn't have to enjoy it.
"Are we there yet?" Rachel asked again.
"Obviously not," I hissed at her.
"Shut up, I wasn't asking you," Rachel shot back at me. "You're just mad because they're taking me to see CATS."
I didn't follow the logic, but oh well. "No, I'm mad because I have to ride in a car from Kentucky to New York just so that you can see a musical that you've practically memorized anyway."
"Baby, baby," Rachel started taunting me. "Electra's a baby."
I ignored her and stared out the window at the passing farms. Slumped in my seat, I started devising plans to get out of seeing CATS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I didn't get out of seeing CATS after all, so I tried to find a seat that was inconspicuous. I wound up sitting right next to the spot where Electra, who Rachel keeps claiming is my namesake, comes out in Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats. Electra looked right at me, for some reason.
And winked at me.
I sat straight up in my chair. Perhaps I had been dozing, but no, I was awake. Everything was as normal as could be.
I decided that I had just been daydreaming, but I sat up and watched the musical. As musical's go, this one wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was good.
The truth? I fell in love with it.
And the change began.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I got home a few days later, I got online first thing to find out what I could. I found out that there are literally thousands of CATS fansites on the web. I searched through them, reading fanfics, looking at art, and chatting. I joined two RPG's, began six fanfics, and three attempts(underline attempts about eight times) to draw Electra, who was fast becoming my favorite. I absorbed what I could of CATS, took a break, and began again, finishing one of my fanfics, drew a decent picture of Electra, and began planning my CATS costume(I was going to be Electra, of course).
That's when I noticed it. I started paying attention to the cat food and litter commercials. I laughed it off, but I realized then that something weird was going on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As the weeks went by, I was more and more into CATS. By September, I knew every step to every dance and every word to every song, even Growltiger's Last Stand(whose dance moves and lyrics were posted on a few websites).
When I turned eighteen, I monitored the news for info on CATS closing. I cried when it was announced that CATS would close in June, cheered when it was postponed to September, and got my parents to take us to see CATS one more time. This time, I got a chance to meet the actress who played Electra, and she taught me a few things about being in CATS, in case I ever joined a cast. I finished my costume in mid-October, and wore it on Halloween. Everyone knew who I was, including people who'd never seen any part of CATS.
At the age of nineteen, I left for college, as well as hoping to see CATS in London. I did, with some money from my parents. After that, I got a job as a typist and went to see CATS again. I admired Electra's portrayer, but it was Etcetera who drew me to her this time. I learned her dance as well, and began auditioning as a Chorus Cat. I took acrobatic and dance lessons of all sorts, and finally broke my way into CATS as an understudy CC. I worked hard, cut back on my college classes, and started dieting. It was a hard job, and early on I had to quit my typing job to concentrate on dancing and college. My roommates complained that I was singing in my sleep. One of them even recorded me mumbling, "Keen to be seen...such as Plato, Admetus..." and I finally started sleeping on the couch. I was twenty-two by this time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I finally made it into the play, when a Chorus Cat fell down a flight of stairs and broke her leg. I was so nervous the first performance, but instinct took over(plus I had no solo lines or moves, so I could concentrate on staying with the others). Eventually, I moved up to Etcetera's part, and understudied Electra.
Dancing became my life. I would have dropped out of college, but I wanted to graduate. So after I completed four years, I left college to be in CATS. I got my own(tiny) apartment.
That's when I started noticing little things about me changing. I tended to eat more meat, less vegetables, and sometimes felt tempted to catch the mice that lived in the run-down neighborhood I lived in rather than set out traps. My legs got hairier, but I thought nothing of that.
Until the fur turned reddish.
The first time I noticed it, I figured it was just a chemical reaction to some new lotion I was putting on my legs, but after quitting using everything on my legs except shaving cream, and even eventually that, I had to give up using the stuff. I was glad that my Etcetera costume covered my legs.
Eventually, I moved up to Jellylorum's understudy, and noticed other strange things about me. My hair was growing erratically, sticking out in some places and pointing straight up in others. I was twenty-six.
I was Jellylorum and understudy to Demeter, when my paws-er, hands-began growing fur, a sort of gold color. I started wearing gloves constantly, but the fur started growing completely up and down my arms. I had to wear long-sleeved shirts in the middle of June, not to mention an oversized hat to cover up my hair. The only place I looked semi-normal was at the theater, when the fur blended with my costume.
I was twenty-six still and playing Demeter when I suddenly realized that I was growing, of all things, a TAIL. I didn't leave my new home(except to perform CATS), and started wearing my Demeter costume home, so as not to attract any strange looks.
I was twenty-seven and Bombalurina, when I realized that I hardly needed to wear a costume anymore. My entire body was covered in red-and-gold fur, my skin on my face had paled until it was completely white, and what people thought was a mustache were actually whiskers.
At the age of twenty-eight, people started noticing me even more. The media started focusing on me, because I was never seen in public, if I wasn't in a performance at the moment.
"Look! It's Electra Starr," the newspaper reporters and TV personnel would say. They'd crowd around me, attempting to get an interview, until finally it got too unbearable.
I was walking home from the last performance of CATS before May(it was April), and the media was completely surrounding me. Finally, the guy who played Admetus came out and helped me get away from the press.
"Hey, Electra, why don't you just give them an interview?" he asked me. "What would it matter?"
"It would matter," I said softly(because I had a HUGE crush on Mark Icatha, who played Admetus), "Because I'm...well...not-quite-human," I finished in a rush. Mark stared at me.
"What?" he said, as if not believing me.
I pulled off my gloves and the Etcetera wig and looked at him. He gasped, and the car swerved.
"My God!" he said. "You're...You're a..."
"A freak," I finished. "I know."
"No, you're just...just...just like me," he muttered. "I should have noticed it before."
"Just like you?" I asked, by now totally confused.
Mark pulled off his wig, and took off his human-looking makeup. I gasped.
He was a cat too.
"Oh my God," I whispered, hardly daring to believe it.
"Come on, I'll take you home," he said, and grinned.
He drove me to a run-down part of town, opened a gate, and walked in.
"Hey Mastega!" a voice said. "Glad you're back from the performance. But where's your wig and what happened to your makeup?"
Mark/Mastega stepped to the left, revealing me, still in my Etcetera unitard and makeup, my gloves and wig being in the car.
"Oh, another performer-turned-cat?" a grayish looking tom said cheerily. "Nice to meet you. Who might you be?"
"Electra," I whispered.
"No, I mean in real life," he said.
"Electra Starr."
"Not the one who's playing Bombalurina?" he said. "We've heard about you on the news.
"Yeah, that's me," I said softly.
"Okay then, let's introduce you to the others in this junkyard. I'm Andestanda, if you're wondering." He led me to the junkyard's clearing. There were seven cats there.
"Okay, there's Persephone-"a gold-and-black cat who looked a lot like Demeter-"Bandali"-a gray-and-gold spotted tom-"Mirada"-a black queen with the most piercing eyes-"Sendela"-a brown queen-"Victor"-a completely white tom with green eyes-"Misha"-a muddy red queen with orange stripes-"Asimber"-leopard-spotted tom with a short yellow tail-"and Sagelita," the short beige queen with a jagged orange stripe down her back. I nodded my hello's.
"Okay tribe, this is-" he looked at me questioningly, and I knew I had to choose a new name. I chose one that I would easily remember.
"This is Starr. Welcome her as you would your own daughter."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two years later...
I was still in CATS, although I was back to playing Etcetera. Mastega was now Asparagus(the younger). We had two new cats in our tribe, Arrina and Zanthe. I watched out for another possible member of our tribe, and eventually I found one-a young performer, playing a CC, and going under the name of "Maria Eleta." I noticed that the exact same things happened to her, and alerted Mastega, who brought her to the junkyard.
Then one day, Victor(who was in another production of CATS and sometimes had to leave for months at a time) brought home another cat, queen four years younger than me. She was black and white, with a grayish patch on her right leg. It took me only a moment to recognize her.
"Mecetra?" I asked, using her old CATS name. "Is that you?"
"Yeah," she said, not recognizing me at first. Then she took another look at me. "Electra? That's you?" I nodded, and we rushed towards each other, hugging each other sa tightly as we could.
"Who...what?" Mastega asked.
"This is my little sister. Mecetra, AKA Rachel," I said, tears running down my cheeks.
THE END