December 14 ~ Furance

In

"Night of Light"

Good to see you my lovely friends! It is France Cat, Lover of the Litter! I like to say I am the most beautiful cat our spinning world has ever seen, but then, aaah, what good is being the most beautiful cat in the world if beauty is to be shared by all who inhabit it? If I, with my thick coat of shining white fur and my cobalt blue eyes, will covet the whole world's beauty, am I not recognizing the beauty in the eyes of the kind kitty stranger? Or the beauty that lives in the mews of a playing, pouncing kitten? Or the graceful beauty in the bones of an old cat, rasping purr coming out as he curls up on his owner's chest at night? What a great evil it must be to covet such a priceless thing as beauty!

I know outbursts like that are not good for my perfect bouncy whiskers. I should be more careful. But lying around looking at these tasteful statues in my human's flat all day fill me with a love for art and philosophy and the whole creative spirit of life. Such a shame it is too chilly to sink my dainty paws into the snow outside. Otherwise I would drag my human out to the parks and museums. He's sewn me so many new scarves this year. He should be grateful I'm aching for a chance to wear them in public.

Today was decorating day for the flat. Of course my human took off work and bought an extra-special cheese for the occasion. (I tried to taste the cheese and was shoved away.) The curtains over the balcony doors were opened, so the whole of Paris could be seen beyond the glass, and though the balcony doors were never opened, due to the chilly, chilly snow swirling around, I still took the whole lunch period to sit in front of the view and sniff at the cold stream of air that leaked through the cracks. I thought it had a smell. Maybe some savory steam from the neighbors? Or cold? Does cold have a smell? These things are so interesting to discriminating kitties like myself.

The whole flat was lit with the dim yellow light, stifled with the scents of sugar and cinnamon and fruity wine, and filled with the sounds of smooth, slow, jazzy holiday favorites… seasoned here and there with a lady singing on vinyl. I do love the vinyl. All scratchy and crackly like my bones, but ever so nostalgic. I close my eyes and think of a time when Christmas was the most exciting time of the year… as opposed to these days, when any time can be exciting when a new cat food flavor comes out.

I heard Japan Cat discovered a squeezable, lickable treat recently. As the world's gossip cat, it was my job to spread that around.

I watched my human in his red satin shirt and slacks move like a warm wind through the cold as he hummed along to the music. First he removed all the upcycled wire hangings and replaced them with wreaths. With some wood and plaster and stucco and paint, he transformed a whole wall into a mantlepiece, complete with dripping candles. Oh, I love the dripping candles! Despite having singed my fur on multiple occasions I still love to sniff them and bat them about to see the wax freeze up on my claws.

I helped to tie ribbons around everything — mostly by tugging on them with my teeth and then testing their bounciness with my paws. Bouncy and shiny will attract Santa's sleigh, no? And when Santa stops, he'll be able to taste the finest wine France himself has to offer. He can have the whole bottle and stay warm while he's flying over the rest of Europe!

Then my human put up the tree. It is a fake one — we only have a day to decorate, and carving a real tree into a masterpiece would take several days of my human's time. (He would gladly take it off from work, but the needles on the floor are another matter, and there's the bit about me climbing the tree…) I help by pulling baubles and pine cones and ribbons out of a cardboard box and placing each one in my human's long hands. He thanks me and twirls his hair as he places each one in just the right spot, so it catches the light of the candles and twinkles in the light. France is a place for Christmas lights! And here in our cozy flat, we have all the glitter and glow of a winter wonderland, without that sticky, icky snow.

"Snow?" My human asks. Then he shudders and drops his current pine cone. "Oh no, I have forgotten to pick up the Christmas lilies! They were going to go on the tree as well! What time is it? It can't be too late, right? The flower shop is all the way across town? Euh, I can zoom, can't I? No, I don't want to do that. It hurts my back to pop out of one place and into another. I just have to drive as fast as I can. Kitty-chat, will you watch the tree for me? Don't eat the candles."

I sway and put my nose in the air with a smile, knowing full-well this does not affect me in the least. My human is so absentminded he's about to leave without wrapping up the cheese, and he'll find some obstacle in his path to success, gaining me an extra half hour of staring into the modern interactive art exhibit of his toilet and keeping my butthole pristine on his soft white sheets.

Just as I expected, in another moment my human has left, and I'm sampling cheese, pawing at my reflection in the toilet, and keeping myself healthy. The music of the vinyls swells to life again. I listen.

But it grows to be an hour of my human away, and I do care about having enough to do to occupy myself. I finish pulling all the pine cones and baubles out of the box, then jump into the box and hunch myself down so my fur spills over the edges. Now I am a modern interactive art exhibit! Come and pet me, critics! I will purr and sniff and scrabble around in my box! Oh! How I love my box! I fill it just perfectly! A box just for me, just as there is a box for every cat! I do hope all cats can find their perfect boxes someday, whether short or tall, big or small, short legs and flat faces and furless and clawless… but not the folded ear ones. They are hopeless at fitting into boxes. There is no charm to a cat in a box without pointed ears sticking up.

But I gave credit to internal beauty, did I not? Unless… that folded-ear cat happens to be critical of everything… and English…

My tail whips up and flies like a fluffy white flag out the corner of the box. My claws fly out and scratch at the corners. My ears lower and flick. My nose pokes and sniffs. Then something catches the corner of my eye.

The fairy lights.

One deep ruby red fairy light rises up out of a tangled green cord over in the corner of the room. Its siblings poke out at odd angles where they slump in sagging sadness. How cruel of my human to leave the lights off the tree! He should have put them on first! Ah! Well, nevermind. I can put the lights on for him. All it will require is leaving the safety of my box and venturing forth. I am so cozy and snug in here, but later I will return. I have an excellent view of the Paris tableau and the stream of cold air to sniff, after all.

I narrow my eyes at the top fairy light, then wiggle my haunches and jump out of the box! My claws scrabble on the floor until I come to bite the top light and back up with it firmly in my mouth. The cord tugs, painfully slow, and I see it is wrapped up on itself in a devilish fashion. No simple coil, but a messy cobweb of twisting, snagging lights. I paw at one. It swings and jiggles slightly where it hangs before stiffening again.

Well, at least that was fun.

I spit out the red light and paw at it. It jiggles. My eyes glitter. I paw at another one. It jiggles and catches the light of the candles! These lights are jiggly!

I leap up and fall on top of the wad of lights, kicking and batting and biting at all the jiggly little bulbs. They are deep ruby red and deep emerald green, not yet filled with the electric spark of Christmas joy. I bite each one while batting two others around and watching them jiggle. The cord remains hopelessly tangled, but I hope the lights are feeling somewhat spirited. I am loving them, even if I'm only playing with them.

My tail flicks over something poky. I lift it up and see I've found the pronged end of the cord to plug the lights into the wall! My mind goes wild. What if I plugged the lights in, and they swung and jiggled and glowed and twinkled!?

My teeth are around the pronged end in an instant, and with a little struggle, I drag the tangled cord over to the nearest outlet, just under the bottom branches of the tree. I do my best to hold my lips and whiskers out of the way as I reach up to press it into the holes.

The door to the flat opens behind me.

"Kitty-chat! I am back! Kitty-chat? Where did you go?"

My human's footsteps grow close. I weave and press with my muzzle, but the pronged end of the cord won't go into the wall! I can't find the holes anywhere! If I represent all the cats of France, surely one of them must have good eye-mouth coordination!

"KITTY-CHAT! DO YOU WANT TO BECOME KITTY FLAMBÉ?"

I hiss when my human grips me around the belly and pulls me out from under the tree. The pronged end of the cord drops below me, defeated and lifeless.

"Oh, kitty-chat. You want even more lights, don't you," my human says, cuddling me to his chest. "You can leave the untangling to me. Just leave the light bulbs alone until they're actually on the tree."

He has nothing to worry about. I've found his lilies and am presently snacking.

~N~

Updated by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net December 15, 2020. No repost.