The Mystery of a Vanishing Cat - by Sunil Sharma
It was a gift to Rani by her artist uncle
on her ninth birthday.
A slim book titled: The Mystery of a
Vanishing Cat.
“What does it mean? Does cat vanish?”
“Find it out yourself.” Uncle said,
smiling.
“Your maternal uncle is a reputed artist,
Rani. You are lucky to have this signed copy.”
Rani beamed. Recovering from the Omicron,
the book provided relief and new pathways out of loneliness, pain and
confinement.
“Never treat the animals---and other God’s
creatures---as lesser beings. They will never betray you, like humans. They are
assets for us.” The uncle said.
She nodded.
“This cat is smart and intelligent. She
understands the language of love.”
The cat became her constant companion. It
was indeed a smart cat who could easily vanish at the sight of a hostile person
and pop back into the book and talk to the reader, once the malevolent force
was gone.
This trait of the principal character of
the story came to be handy soon. When dad returned from the official trip, she
vanished into the book.
“Queenie, do not be afraid. Dad is gruff
but kind. Only thing, he hates pets.”
But Queenie would not listen. She refused
to pop out from the book into the immediate world of her devoted reader, as
long as the head of the household was around. Once he left for office, the cat
popped out and played with the girl in her small bed room in suburban Mumbai.
Once dad came home early---only to find a
cat meowing and prancing in the room of Rani.
“How come a pet in this house?” demanded
angry dad. “How you allowed this, woman?”
“There is no cat here!” declared mother,
scared by the tone of her man.
“I glanced at Ran’s room and saw a
cross-eyed cat with a thick tail and whisker. Rani was holding the disgusting
creature in her arms! You do not pay attention, woman. Neglecting your motherly
duties, as usual, while I overwork in the office.”
Mother pulled a sad face. Almost on the
brink of tears.
Rani came out of bed and stood at the
threshold. “Dad, please! No cats here. Check.”
Dad searched but found nothing---no trace.
How come!
Daddy shrugged his shoulders and went
inside the hall.
“He hates everybody!” said mother in a low
voice.
Rani smiled. “Do not worry, Ma. He is
nice. Only worried about saving his job. Covid-19, he was saying on phone, had
made bosses end the jobs of many people in the office.”
“I know. It does not give a license to
hate the whole world.”
“Maybe, Queenie would change him. She will
teach him the value of selfless love of a pet,” predicted Rani.
“Yes. This bitter man needs the urgent
company of a pet,” observed mother. “Maybe, a pet will also teach him the value
of peace and harmony in a family.”
“And respect and love for women.”
“You are far ahead of your years, dear
Rani. My only consolation in a masculine house. My only reason to stay here
with this toxic man.”
“For me, you are the reason to find
happiness. He always blames me for being a girl, not a boy!”
“Do not worry, child. You are precious to
me, us, as a girl only. Ignore that man.”
Rani smiled and hugged the frail woman.
Then the duo saw the cat reappear inside
the room. They quietly went inside Ran’s room and shut the door, while daddy
watched a loud TV.
“Thanks, dear Queenie for saving the day!”
remarked Rani and hugged the cat that had popped out from the illustration of
the book into the room, on her silent feet.
Queenie meowed and said, “Beware of hate!
It kills.”
“How?” asked Rani.
“I was killed in the medieval Europe.
Hunted down. Burnt alive. Then the plagues started and wiped our entire towns.
Hatred destroyed humankind in a particular region of the dark world! Horrible
killings of my species by the bipedal predators. Meow!”
Rani cried at the pain in the voice of
Queenie---and the sadness of her expressive eyes.
“Do not cry, child. Your maternal uncle,
my author, created me as a story-book character to comfort lonely souls in
indifferent universe or homes.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Books can reach any place. I am
there inside the covers. Feel me, I will be there. Call or connect with me any
time and I will pop up in your world. Materialize in the blank space before you
as a reader and become real.”
“And vanish before the cynics come
a-catching the felines,” observed mother famous for her doodling. “Vanish into
the kingdom of imagination and creativity, as a mere inert character.”
“Yes, right Ma,” replied Queenie, “Only a
believing heart can see the actual me. The real me. And then I become part of
their lives forever.’
“Yeah! That is wonderful!” exclaimed mother.
The cat meowed.
Outside, the harsh wind of monsoon knocked
on the closed window. Dark clouds floated in a grey-dark sky, threatening rain.
A car backfired.
The street noise filtered in via crevices.
“Queenie?”
.
At that precise moment,
the door flew open and a red-eyed dad entered the semi-dark room, shouting,
“Eureka! Found the missing cat. I turned on the TV volume and tiptoed here to
eavesdrop on scheming girls. A ploy. Ha! Heard the voices inside. I was right.
I am never wrong, by the way. Heard the unmistakable shrill voice of a cat. Ha!
Here is the cursed cat I saw! Hated cats all my life, now present in my
house!”
And he plunged forward to catch the cat
but it leaped inside the covers of the pop-up book---and vanished.
Rani and Ma were speechless with the
terror of this sudden discovery by the lord of the house…and trembled before
the angry man.
“There!” he shouted. “That is her home.
Home of the stealthy intruder. My tormentor! Phew! Will catch and kill her, the
she-demon!”
And he seized the book and tore it in
half, laughing like mad, eyes glazed, thin face twisted in hate.
Rani screamed: “Dad. Please! Spare the
cat, my pal. Please, Dad. It is cruelty to the God’s gentle creatures. Do not
be that heartless towards an adorable being.”
Dad was demented with rage. “STOP whining,
you fool! Both of you deceived me, mother and daughter. I will not tolerate
this deception in my house, this, this…disobedience. Understood?”
As he tore the book further, the cat
inside the covers cried in deep death agony at this act of sheer vandalism by
an adult and senior executive of a pharma company experimenting with
pain-alleviating drugs.
The cat cried and gasped.
Dad laughed, pleased.
At that moment, Rani saw him grow horns
and fangs and a twisted tail of a devil shown in pictures.
“Cat! In my house! No way,” he hissed.
Mother screamed at this savagery and bit
into the hands of the common tyrant, “Spare that, you, the monster! You have no
feelings at all for anybody here. You are a real devil, not the innocent and
trusting cat!”
He shouted, “You are useless and a
weakling. Like your elder brother. Worthless artist! Of no value to society.”
“Do not bring my brother into this,”
shouted back mother. “Spare my family. Do not slander them.”
“Why not? Useless siblings. Why did he
gift this to Rani, this book of an imaginary cat, this useless book? Throw it
in the gutter.”
“Story books are great teachers…”
“Hush, woman! Stories! Imagination! For
idle minds only. Instead, teach your always-dreaming daughter to focus on
science or commerce, not these worthless stories. Ha!”
And he left fuming. Rani fainted, while
the cat’s cries faded away from that wretched room of a two-room unhappy house
of a three-member family.
.
The same evening, the “cat fever” visited
the man who had tried to strangulate the cat Queenie, favouraite of the kids
and adults alike, the world over. The book was a recent sensation after a celeb
had tweeted about it and film and TV heads were in talks with the obscure
author-illustrator about its rights. There were offers of translations from 40
languages as well.
More deals.
Interviews.
You tube coverage.
Articles on the book and its creator in
academic journals.
Maternal uncle, living in penury so far,
was the toast of the country. A country of more than one billion souls and with
hardly a hundred or so artists working for the children’s books.
“Cat fever”, wrote the furious uncle, is
the strange illness that visits the animal-haters of every type, especially
cats and call them as satanic, as they did in the dark-age Europe…and paid a
heavy price for this wanton act of caticide (massacre of cats).
“What is that?” queried mother on
WhatsApp. “Cat fever? Never heard about it.”
“You will come to know soon.” He wrote
back.
.
Three days and three nights!
That is the time it took for the cat fever
to subside.
Dad had gone mad, shouting in fevered
state and disturbed sleep, “Rat! Rats! They are nibbling my toes. Nibbling food
everywhere. Running over me all the time. Overrunning the house and town. SAVE
me! Where are Queenie and her sisters?”
Even the best doctor uncles could not
understand this illness.
“Queenie will save her.” Said the maternal
uncle and creator. “Once the ill patient calls out her name, thrice! And
undergoes a change of heart, as a repentant.”
Dad, although unconscious, bed-ridden, in
fear did that on the third night, as predicted.
It was dark. Rain was pounding. Thunder
was heard in the background---and lightening spliced the sky.
“Save me from the mighty invasion of the
huge hungry rats! Queenie, Queenie, Queenie! Save me, please!” he pleaded in
delirium, as both the “girls” prayed to a kind cat god and goddess…and to
Queenie, friend and benefactor of humankind, much misunderstood, maligned and
scorned across the ages, thus truly exposing the darkness of a human heart
through such myths and slandering.
.
Strangely enough, the delirium and hot
shivers and nightmares vanished magically.
Dad recovered and grew quiet and
withdrawn.
Magic happened then.
Same evening of his full and complete
recovery, dad coughed and shyly entered Rani’s room, his hands at the back.
He called out: “Come here, dear wife!”
Mother, incredulous, rushed in.
Dad showed the story-book to them both.
The duo gasped.
The bearded man had pieced together the
slim book with neat strips of cello tape and every page looked alright.
“Sorry! Please forgive me, my dear
daughter and my wife. Two beloved women of my life, my centre!”
Rani leapt up; an emotional mother cried
at this sight.
“Queenie! Please appear now.” Pleaded dad.
“Come back in our lives. We miss you!”
“Meow! Meow! Here I come, my human
family!”
And queenie popped up and out from the
book---into the waiting circle of new and steady fans, while thunder and
lightning too subsided in the sky.
Since then, Queenie continues to delight
dad and his family.
Surprisingly, dad has also opened up a Cat
Club for the cynics of the city! Men who do not like pets, strays or any animal
or bird.
Men who love themselves only.
The Club offers them a chance to discover
love in most unlikely places.
It is going viral.
A regal but friendly thing.
Sometimes, some adults say, Queenie winks
at them, looking out from that logo of the Club that is attracting more fans by
the day due to the mysterious powers of a cat that appears and disappears at
will.
Sunil Sharma is Toronto-based senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 23 published books: Seven collections of poetry; four of short fiction; one novel; a critical study of the novel, and, nine joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism, and, one joint poetry collection. He is a recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award---2012. His poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015.
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