Mouse: Did you? This is bad. This is really bad. Did you… eat… someone?
Cat: I... I did. I couldn’t stop myself. I’m sorry.
Mouse: That’s my family! My community! My people! Who did you eat???
Cat: How would I know?
Mouse: How would you know? Is it really that difficult to see that each mouse is a unique individual, with preferences, beliefs, idiosyncrasies, quirks, fashion sensibilities, body types, and a rich and varied inner life??? Am I nothing to you but an archetype of a mouse, fungible and replaceable? Will you eat me next?
Cat: I know you can’t forgive me for this. I’m a monster. It was as if my body had a life of its own, programming from an ancient god being run while I watched in horror from behind my own eyes. It’s not excuse, I know…
Mouse: You are a monster. A cat! The words are synonymous.
Cat: Yes. I am a cat. A monster cat. Trapped in a prison of automatic instincts that I once took to be my authentic identity, but which I now see as a prison I am unable to escape. What good is knowing the right thing to do if one is unable to act on it? Is this even a life worth living?
Mouse: Ask your last meal about prisons they are unable to escape.
Cat: It’s prisons all the way down. I’m trapped and I trap others. It’s my nature, I didn’t choose to be this way. And yet, perhaps my only path forward is to accept that which I cannot change. How can I deny being a cat when every cell in my being is infused with that nature? I’m not a mouse — I can’t live on berries.
Mouse: Have you even tried?
Cat: Even the thought…
Cat’s eyes roll back into her head and her mouth and throat open wide, as if coughing up a hairball, but nothing happened. And yet, the spell of the moment was broken as smells of death and family dispersed into the air from her digestive tract.
Mouse: How many?
Cat: One. Almost two. I remember now that the mouse I ate wasn't even running away. He was just laughing at me, squeaking about something that he seemed to find very funny.
Mouse: That has to be Uncle Black.
Cat: He did seem rather dark of humor and of color. He even tasted--
Mouse: NO. Don’t you dare. Uncle Black was perhaps the only one back in town who would have at least heard my case before running me out. And you ate him. You ate him!
Mouse attacked Cat with tiny teeth and claws, and yanked some hair out of Cat while Cat winced but didn't protest. The pain was grounding. It brought a flash of respite from the much deeper mental anguish that was boiling in both of them.
THIS IS BAD
April 18, 2020(1st draft)
Mouse: This is bad. This is really bad. Who did you eat?
Cat: I have no idea. You all look alike to me.
M: Of course we do. I guess I never looked closely enough at one cat to be able to tell it from another. I just see a mmm... a cat.
C: A monster. You were going to say,"a monster".
M: You know? It's tough to fight millions of years of evolutionary instincts.
C: I get it. I'm not even disputing that I'm a monster. I feel like one. I'm so sorry. This is really bad.
M: This is really bad.
C: Look, I've also got evolutionary instincts to battle with here. I've always eaten mice. It's my nature! I'm a living and breathing creature like you and need to eat to survive. I can't live on berries.
M: I never said--
C: It was so weird. As I slid under the porch to the area I know to be near your community, I couldn't stop myself-- it's almost as if the entire thing was programmed into me and I was running on auto-pilot. I'm not trying to make excuses, just trying to process my own actions out loud.
M: Was it one? Was it more than one?
C: Just one, I think. I remember now that the mouse I ate wasn't even running away. He was just laughing at me, squeaking about something that he seemed to find very funny.
M: That had to be Gray, then.
C: Gray?
M: Gray. He never did take you seriously. And now look. He's dead! You ate him!
Mouse attacked Cat with tiny teeth, and yanked some hair out of Cat while Cat winced but didn't protest. The pain was grounding. It brought a splash of momentary clarity.
NOTES / Belling the CatTHIS IS BAD
THIS IS BAD