Elegy of Gali

I wrote this over a year ago before my cat Gali died. I had this cat for 19 years. so almost my whole life. Before she died I knew the end was coming and stayed up worrying about it. this is the result. I am posting it now because I feel like it might be able to help others with grief over death. 

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I’m sorry. I am sorry that there is nothing I can do to help you. You sit blissfully unaware as I lose sleep. What a joke, some might find it funny that I am getting so worked up over this.

My life span is almost five times as long as yours. I saw you being born, I watched with the eyes of an adult, and with those same eyes I will watch you die. Life is so fleeting. Days seem to drag on like years, yet years fly by in seconds. I blink and you are fully-grown, I blink again and you have been dead for months.

I feel like god watching mortals. This is the only time I have heard of being god as a bad thing. I watch you grow up and grow strong and have the burden to watch you slowly weaken. The frailty of your life reminds me of the inevitable nature of my own.

I cry because I don’t want to lose you, then I continue to cry because I don’t want to die. The irony is that despite my long life span and vast knowledge, it is you that comforts me. You don’t know why I am upset but you want me to feel better. Actually I can’t imagine how you must see the world. Living a comparatively short life, completely ignorant of death and disease.

Maybe it is you who should feel bad for me. After all, you are the one asleep and I am the one writing this down at 2am.

Felix and the Trick or treat

            On a cool autumn night a small black cat wearing a small black hat, sat on a fence. The cat had a collar, attached to the collar was a little black bowtie. Below the bowtie hung the nametag. “Felix” was engraved on the small metal oval hanging from the cat’s orange color. With the combination of the gentleman’s hat and bowtie, Felix looked like he was ready for a night on the town. More accurately his owners dressed him up for Halloween before letting him out for the night. Despite not dressing himself Felix still walked with a certain level of confidence and looked handsome in his little outfit.

            A full moon lit up the sky and stars sparkled like diamonds against black satin. The town of “Maple Hill” was small and rural. It was a safe town and most people knew their neighbors. On Halloween Parents felt safe enough to let their kids trick or treat without an adult, usually an older sibling would look after the younger ones, or a child would go with friends. Felix bounced a little as he walked. The crisp air and the smell of baked goods tickled his nose and gave him energy. The sound of crunching leaves mixed with the giggling of children and the low howl of the wind.

            As Felix enjoyed his night of strolling the town he saw an unfamiliar cat. He knew every cat in the neighborhood just as the humans knew at least the face of every person in town. This cat was a girl cat, she was all black and had piercing green eyes. She wasn’t dressed up and didn’t have a collar. Felix was enchanted and walked right up to the slender black cat. Felix’s yellow eyes, black fur and black and orange outfit looked great on Halloween night, but somehow this new cat seemed to fit the night even better.

            As he approached this cat, she turned to him and smiled. Which was strange because cats can’t really ‘smile’. Felix stopped and was more cautious when he approached. The Female cat patted Felix’s head. Then turned to leave. Felix was about to approach but before he could the black cat turned into a crow, black with emerald green eyes. The crow looked at Felix as he stumbled backward. Then without a word or even a caw, the crow took off silently into the night.

            Halloween is a special time of the year when people dress up, eat candy and just for a brief time just might believe magic is real. On Halloween it doesn’t matter if you are a human or a cat, if something looks strange, maybe give it a second look.

Tail of two cats

In the darkness of night two life forms were created. These beasts were born from the shadows and were created through their own sheer will. They were born because they willed themselves to be so. They started very small. The Shadow beasts looked like a small adorable ball of dark fur. One of the creatures was dark black with only the slightest of white markings. The other was black with other dark colors mixed in.

Into the night the creatures walked, their slow pace and tiny frame giving the illusion of innocence. These creatures were in fact adorable, but the mischief and evil intent could be seen in clearly in their bright yellow eyes.

            The tiny beasts stalked the streets. They lived and thrived in the human world. These creatures weren’t friends nor were they enemies. They both preferred being dominate but respected the others strength enough to work together for a time. during one of their nightly walks in the town, humans came and caught the black and brown create and took her away. Being so small at the time, there was nothing either of these shadowy female creatures could do.

            A year passed and the blackest of the two continued to live on the streets. She traveled among the local street cats for company and occasionally changed her form to look like them. One day a human truck rolled up and two humans got out. They had thick leather gloves and a cage. They came to wrangle the stray cats in the area. The darkest of shadow beasts had warmed up to the cats that kept her company. So as the humans approached. The beast charged forward as the alley cats slipped out behind a house.

            A struggle ensued, but the beast still wasn’t big enough to fight. So she inevitably lost and was thrown in the cage.

            The shadow beast woke up and was in a larger cage, in a building. Dogs, cats and other animals surrounded her. She was in an animal shelter. She roared in protest, but sadly she had spent too much time with cats and was still very small, so her roar was more of an adorable “mew”. This prompted a kindly human to come by and bring food.

 It might have been confined but this wasn’t so bad having free food and a safe place to sleep.

            Then one day a family arrived to adopt a cat. The shadowy monster did her best to look like a cat. She was smart enough to know this ‘adoption’ thing was her way out. Then once she was ‘adopted’ she could escape and travel back to her street.

            From there she was ‘adopted’ and taken to the human home. She was given the name “Gali” and was treated very nicely. After some time had passed Gali had become used to the perks of being a house cat. She just had to keep her form stable and catlike. She would get massages, food, water and comfortable things to sleep on. Life was bliss.

As the years went on, she stayed in cat form for so long, she forgot how to change back to her neutral form. The only thing that changed was her eye color. Since color wasn’t a physical thing and she couldn’t reach the mirror, her eyes would change from bright yellow to bright green and anything in between. This changed happened depending on her mood. The humans never were suspicious but they were aware of it. Luckily humans are dumb and don’t believe that some cats and animals are actually shadow creatures brought into this world through sheer force of will.

            Gali had many adventures during her time with the humans, but missed her rival at times. Little did she know that soon her shadowy sister would be coming over to stay.