The Fourteen Years I Spent as a Cat

Chapter 1: Beginning ~ I... am a stray cat~

Crowds of people quickly passing by and cars of various sizes. The cloudy grey skies were warm and humid.

I held my breath and stared up at the grey skies above.

Amongst the bombardment of annoying sounds, there I was, within an alley, between some garbage bags tossed on the cold concrete.

I’ve never known my parents, or a home. I’ve been here for as long as I remember.

This is the seventh time I’ve seen these thick clouds, hanging so low.

As soon as I had grasped what was going on around me, and despite being so young, I had understood the fact that I was a stray. Apart from the bit of lunch that the plump, middle-aged female fishmonger shared with me a little past lunch time, my world is dull and unchanging.

“Looks like it’s going to rain”, says the woman as she rips off pieces of fish to pass over to me.

I cautiously, and slowly, poke my head out, before vigorously going at the fish placed on a thin white paper plate as I thought about the rain.

I was really, really, hungry.

Just as I was cautiously making my way through my meal, I thought back to how, of the seven times when it had been so cloudy, two had ended up raining viciously. In the darkness, when everything around had become as still as death, rain would pour down incessantly from the black skies.

Rain is a real pain. Not only was it cold, it would soak my bed, and I couldn’t do anything but embrace my wet body, and quietly endure every time.

“I’ll give you a bit more before I close shop.”

Right before the woman bent down for the empty plate, I shrunk right back into the garbage bag.

I’m cautious around humans. On the first cloudy day, when I didn’t understand a single thing, I was showered with insults from countless humans, and it even looked like they were going to hit me.

The woman makes a slightly lonely face, and left me.

After a little while, the sound of a woman loudly advertising “How about some fresh fish?” to passersby echoed over to me. Lots of humans and vehicles were coming and going across the roads. Most of the adult men were in suits, and the sound of their leather shoes hitting the pavement annoyed me.

The humans passing by, all wearing the same face, and the cold, metal vehicles zooming by at murderous speeds.

What a cruel world, I think to myself, motionlessly glancing at the grey world in front of me.

I know all about it. Even if I don’t remember, I’m pretty sure I was carried here on that metal vehicle, and thrown away here. That’s something that we understand even if no one tells us.

It was just that my awareness was born after that, but my instinct had begun sprouting the instant I had been birthed from my mother, who’s face I didn’t even know.

Which is why my instinct knows.

What that experienced carved into me, was the continued warning of “Don’t believe in others”, “Don’t expect anything from others”, “I only have myself.”

Even though I understand that as the truth, I can’t help but maintain this pessimistic feeling.

For example, if my life were to end, living like this, it wouldn’t affect me or matter whether it was here or somewhere else.

I eat and sleep in order to live, and then die somewhere, someday.

Right now I’m young and small, so I have no choice but to accept the food that the lady gives me, but once I get a bit bigger, I would probably be able to secure my own source of food. Thus, right now, in order to grow bigger, I have no choice but to stay here.