The verdant years of a cat

Author: Tang Wu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: walks along a winding dirt path, flanked by tall reeds and poplar trees. At first, it thinks it has reached the north, but soon it notices some southern plants, such as coconut trees, kapok trees, and tree ferns. It doesn’t know where it is. From night to dawn, it just keeps moving forward. It feels like an ancient warrior—brave yet occasionally lost in a strange land. That day, while chasing a fleeing cricket, it gets carried away by the path and ends up in places it has never been before. Later, it sees wheat fields, meadows, and mountains—all scenery absent from Mido Street. Gradually, it gets used to looking at the moon from time to time, as if it were a general exiled from his homeland, filled with longing for his home. Even when hungry, it still thinks of its owner and grapes, who gave it a soft bed and delicious food. (It misses fish and rice very much—ately, it has been eating fat insects from the grass and occasionally finding dried fish in the cracks of riverbank stones when passing by streams.) But its mood is quite good. Various wonderful plants and animals pass by, along with many people with peculiar appearances. These new experiences make it forget its travel fatigue and constantly rekindle its enthusiasm, eager to see what strange things await next.
This curious cat, when it st feels the taste of homesickness, finds the sensation utterly wonderful. It loves the posture of lowering its head in thought, and when other cats ask, "What are you doing?" it can answer deeply: "This is homesickness. You don’t understand!" At such times, it feels a sense of pride, though it doesn’t know why. It keeps walking along the winding path, never knowing where it will go next. Later, whenever it arrives in a strange place, it carefully remembers the weather and the things that leave the deepest impression. Because, it plans to recall a distant place in the future for every kind of weather. It can slowly reminisce about a past or a place under the sun, in the rain, or in the snow. There, there is a plant it can never forget, or a story that remains unresolved. It might remember someone, or perhaps just seem to smell a unique flavor of a distant land. For example, a city covered in locust trees once gave it a rich, sweet aroma of leaves evaporating—that was a syrupy taste it would never forget. Whenever it encounters scorching heat, it is completely overwhelmed by that memory, as if it were back in that city.
In short, the journey may have made it somewhat sensitive. This usually lazy and careless cat has undergone subtle changes after a series of strange and brief travels. Perhaps when it returns to Mido Street, people will find it unfamiliar. But doesn’t think there’s anything strange about it. After all, the people of Mido Street are changing too. How could this summer be exactly the same as last year? Everyone is changing, just in different ways.