The Boy and the Cat

By Tak Woo, aged 16

I was taking a walk in the park when I saw him. I had run out of ideas of what to write for my upcoming poem due in 2 days for a submission to the New Yorker magazine, after countless attempts asking for an invitation. Words were filling the depths of my body, in every corner of my soul from head to toe. I scrambled to gather my thoughts but the cloudy blur of nothing chained me, preventing me from doing so. The last drops of caffeine entered my throat, and I decided to head out to refresh my mind.

The air was an icy cubicle of blue. There was a gentle breeze, knocking on the surface of my grey trench coat. Yet my fear of weakness wouldn’t let it in, for it was the only wall of defense that stood between my vulnerability, and my writing. That’s what my publisher had told me when he declined my last poem, that I wasn’t vulnerable enough.

“I promise I can do better,” I recalled saying.

 “You can do better when you come back with a more honest poem,” He said. “Break down those walls.”

What walls? The only wall that exists was the wall of trees firmly rooted within the grounds of where I stood. Blanketed by a few sprinkles of light yellow and red leaves glistening under the velvet shreds of sun. The beams splashed and spilled onto the tree branches. A flower of light within the pitch black I saw. It was rare to see such light in the Greenwich Park in London.

I stumbled upon something. It was a stone of some sort. I ran my fingers over the smooth surface. There was writing on it. I read,

‘IN MEMORY…’

Something poked my arm.

*****

‘Hello kind sir, have you seen a cat run past this way?’

I looked at him puzzled. The boy was around 8 or 10, with pale skin and pink freckles dotted on his cheeks. His denim jeans were covered in dirt from who-knows-where. The black beanie wrapped round his head made him look like an owl. His gasps of breath were visible wisps fading into nothing. He had two emeralds instead of eyes.

‘I could’ve sworn she went this way. It’s a black cat speckled with spots of white near his back. Her head is buried deep within her furry neck. Are you sure you haven’t seen her?’

The boy sniffed his runny nose. I shook my head.

‘Okay, thanks anyway.’

The boy sighed. He took off his beanie and clutched it with both hands. His short ginger hair, bedazzled in the wind, matched his red flannel jacket, a little too thin for the weather. He brought both hands up to his mouth and exhaled. The wisps encircled his hands forming a thin layer of protection from the refrigerated air. He gazed down at his frozen hands.

That’s when she appeared. The cat levitated past the midst of the trees. It appeared, then disappeared, for its black and white became one with the shadows. A goddess of mischief. Speckles of white formed ringlets down its black vertebrae. Its black tail flaming in the wind signified grace, and power. Its flexible yet firm skeleton allowed its serpent-like body to snake past the leaves leaving no trace of weakness behind. Its sharp paws let no sound escape on its path. Its motions of silence radiated with immensity, with a thousand bullets shooting to all corners of the earth. This cat definitely had more than 9 lives.

I was entranced by its aura of strength and beauty when I noticed that the boy had vanished. I looked around. His red flannel jacket was easy to spot. He followed the cat’s path, his feet crunching onto the perfectly well-shaped leaves that the cat left behind. The cat didn’t look back, but its pattern of movement altered. The creature switched direction with pounding pulsations of silence in each step. The boy barely seemed intimidated by its profound terror. He trudged through the leaves.

The cat made another drift past a maple tree. The boy followed. Another smooth turn past another tree, and another forming a moderately large circle round its path. The cat’s voluptuous figure generated a shadow looming above the small boy. Despite the cat being a third of the mass of the boy, the cat’s sinister existence overwhelmed the park in all directions. The boy didn’t seem to care. A merry-go-round, horses with no knights on their backs. Continuing to spin for eternity.

The cat’s blazing black tail strangled my insides, yet it was just another form of teasing in the boy’s eyes. Provoking the inner barbaric self within, the boy’s pace fastened, fascinated by the sensual yet mystical creature before him. The cat never altered its pace.

Six meters, the distance between the boy and the cat. The number gradually decreased as the boy’s feet accelerated on the merry-go-round augmented by the cat. With every step the cat took, the boy took two. The cat’s tail synchronized with the wind, its translucent whiskers slicing the air into shatters of nothing. The ringlets of its tail glistened under the crimson rays, melting into the surroundings in glitters of molten lava.

The boy ran, his red flannel jacket flapping vigorously against his body. A comet with the force of a million suns about to shatter all of space and time known to man. The boy was at maximum proximity of its magnetized nature, on behalf of all of mankind’s attempts to gain possession of it. In a fraction of a second the cat leapt backwards and pulled out its metallic daggers and struck with imperial ferocity. Its ravishing strides penetrated the thin layers of fabric and skin, revealing the scarlet flesh beneath the boy’s skin.

Bloodshed.

The cat was gently perched on a tree branch. The boy looked up in a daze. His grey T-shirt lightly smothered in drops of life as it escaped through the boy’s torso. For a moment, the cat’s eyes met with the emeralds of the boy. Fixedly, the cat’s phosphorescent yellow eyes projected through the boy’s skull, distinguished by a tint of refinement. Affection. Attraction.

The boy knelt as he watched.

The emeralds were moist with droplets. He stood up and walked. He crossed the street next to the park, and went into a green house.

I noticed that he had left his red flannel jacket. I went to take it from the branch that he had left it on.The fabric was something like I had never felt before. Sharp rips around the chest area. Airy, light, yet still somehow heavy enough to sink into my hands and wrap me in warmth that the boy had left behind. I felt something at my right calf.  The cat was rubbing its back against my leg. I stood there in silence. Its eyes were shut. I felt the furry strands of black stroking the side of my leg, an unfamiliar sensation.

I walked away. I wasn’t accustomed to having this sense of affection pressing against me. The cat followed. It obviously wanted something. I knelt down to the cat. It came closer. I flinched. The cat pawed the red flannel jacket. I held on to it. The cat pressed its back against it. I held on to it. The cat sniffed the red flannel jacket. I held on to it. The cat laid its body down on the flannel jacket. Her eyes demanded my assistance. I caressed the cloth around the cat’s silky body. The cat closed its eyes, obediently. It curled its body within the cloth. A big panther. A thousand thoughts flashed by my mind. Violent pulses of the heart echoed in the midst of silence. Not a cloud in the sky, nor a breath exhaled. I picked it up. The cat relaxed. I felt its weight settling into my forearms. Its muzzle smudged with spots of red. Something was shimmering under its fur on its neck. The silver medal on the collar read,“Vivian.”

I brought the whole package to the house of green across the street. I knocked on the door. A middle-aged lady greeted me, “Yes?”

She was a woman of around 40. With thin metallic glasses perched on top of her ginger hair with strands of white here and there. She was wearing an apron with sunflowers on it. She had eyes as green as an emerald.

“Good evening, Ma’am, I believe this cat is yours?” I turned my forearms at an angle so that the cat’s face could be revealed.  She peered at the cat, “Oh Vivian, she used to be Felix’s cat before he died 8 years ago. She’s a stray cat now. She likes to visit us for food and company. She doesn’t really like strangers, getting picked up like that. I wouldn’t advise you to hold her for long, she behaves compulsively at times.” Compulsively?

The conversation continued for a minute or two. I handed the cat to the woman and went back the way I had come. I reached the stone that I previously bumped into moments ago. There was writing on it.

*****

“IN MEMORY OF Felix Jones, a loving son, grandchild. May he rest in peace after an unfortunate incident involving a psychologically unstable feline.” The little dots spotted on the stone.

When I got home, I sent an email to my publisher:

“Dear Mr. Miller,

I was wondering if I could change my poem submission to prose?

Kind regards,”

I began writing.