I Am A Cat: Is Permanence Attainable?
I am a cat. I did not ask to be, but here I am. People say we creatures live by habit—curled in the same patch of sun, paws tucked the same way, whiskers twitching in rhythm with our dreams. They mistake stillness for permanence, but I know better: every ray of sunlight shifts, every nap eventually ends.
I was there the day he was born— small, loud, hairless. A ridiculous display! I’ve come to realize this creature is not also called a kitten. His species classification is a “baby”, but he was given another, more personal name too. My name is Bartholemeow, and his name is Max.
He grew quickly, as humans tend to. One day he was crawling and blubbering, the next pulling my tail with curious fingers. I’d hiss, he’d laugh. Strange, isn’t it? How the sound of warning is a source of their delight? Max learned to walk, then to talk, then to run, and then to leave the house without me watching from the windowsill. With every passing season, he seemed to molt like a snake, shedding each version of himself for another— yet when he returned, his heartbeat was the same as he held me to his chest.
I was there for every birthday, for every candle that was blown. I don’t understand the appeal of melting wax spluttering around on an object of consumption, but it seemed to make Max happy. His favorite part appeared to be blowing out the candles and “making a wish” (another concept I don’t quite understand). I was there as he left for college, I was there as he fell in love one, two, three times. And as each moment passed, I thought to myself: So is this permanent? Is this going to last forever, in the very form it began in? Alas, every time I pondered that, I found myself proven wrong.
When he met the woman who became his wife, I noticed it instantly: change was in everything. You would think his wife was the only permanent thing about him, but I found her to be the exact opposite— she was transformation in the form of a human. His smile was wider, his steps were lighter. Once I saw them dancing in the kitchen, their socks sliding across the floor as they laughed. In every season together they altered each other: two rivers braiding, changing course as they moved together. She was constant in presence, yes, but never in the same form.
Then came the years of gray hair, trembling hands, slower mornings. His wife sat beside him, reading aloud when his voice no longer rang as well. I curled at the edge of their bed, and I thought: they had not stayed as they once were, but in becoming different, they became themselves.
And now, as Max lays on his deathbed, he has lived his life in a myriad of different ways, as a myriad of different people. Permanence? It is only the illusion of a cat sitting very, very still. Look closer— my whiskers shift with breath, my ears flick at the faintest sound.
Even now, as I lick my paw, the world moves on. And I? I move through it without resistance—no longer the cat I was when Max first held me, yet, somehow, still me.