The Silliness Of The Cat

Sometimes, you sit in the world which is the world of a kitten. It is full of spiky things and interesting things and thread and balls of wool and stuff to bat about. And it is all a game and in the end you curl up in it and pull it around you and fall asleep. Then everything is all right.

What does the kitten dream about? It dreams about more wool, and more interesting things, and saves its energy for the real version of its dreams. And at the back of its mind, it begins to dream the dream of the cat, and perhaps in its primordial Nimrod myth, it realises it will one day be a mighty hunter.

Then again, some day it might grow up to realise it has hunted nothing but string, chased nothing but little chittering lizards, and terrorised the odd bird or two. It will on that day grow wise in one of two ways. The first way is that it will realise it is still big in its own way, and decide never to grow up.

The second choice is harder. It can decide to go off and die, knowing that out there, God will make it into a Cat; not just a cat, but a Cat. It's harder, and most cats take at least 9 years to get there, one year for each of their lives. It is surprisingly very difficult to give up a life that you cannot keep for one that you cannot lose.

But there you have it.

It's been a funny kind of afternoon.