Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
Once upon a time there lived a calico cat named Patches who believed inside her skin that she was not a cat at all but a human just like the members of the family that she watched everyday through the window as she sat on the window ledge.
Patches was never allowed inside in case she dropped fur all over the human’s clothes or scratched the furniture. She felt very alone and separate from everybody.
Everyday Patches would dream about how it would be if she were one of them. “If only” she would say over and over again and lick her lips at the thought of sitting down to afternoon tea with those pretty cakes and the steaming liquid she saw them put into those pretty cups. She would tell herself that to make certain that you put in extra milk when she was pouring tea.
As she watched all that the family did together, singing along beside the piano, playing hide and go seek, throwing the ball, dressing up to go out, she longed more and more for that human that she was to get out from the cat body. She so wanted to belong and have fun too.
If only she would repeat over and over, if only they could see me as I really am.
One day when she saw the family go out leaving her all alone, she did something she had never done before…. she sneaked through an open window and got inside. Now she pretended that she was indeed human so she first decided to try and sit like they did. She sidled up to the chair hopped up as graciously as she could and tried ever so hard to sit like she had seen the family sit many times before.
She was so pleased with herself that it was so easy! Then she imagined that she was at her first tea party with all those pretty little cakes and that milky drink in those pretty little cups. Oh how good they tasted in her mind.
Then she felt she needed to be dressed up just like the family did for special occasions so she hopped off the chair made her way to the little girl’s bedroom and by good luck the wardrobe door was opened and she looked at all the dresses inside and fell in love with the long white dress. First I have to walk like a human she thought and so she stretched herself all the way up using the chair at first and when she was stretched as far up as she could go she took her first step and then another pretty soon she was walking on her two back legs like a human.
Next she tried on the long white dress and looked in the mirror, she was so proud to see not the old calico dress that she had always worn but this soft white linen and lace dress and looked just like the humans.
And because of that wish that had allowed her to find the courage to follow her heart she felt now brave enough to go walking. However as sh looked outside it was raining and the one thing Patches disliked most of all was being outside and getting wet.
She really disliked the water on her feet and back but most of all her fur could stink when it was wet. What to do she thought as now she didn’t want to get the lovely white dress wet either and yet…she longed to go walking in her new body.
Finally she turned around and spotted a tall vase near the front door that has a rainbow coloured umbrella in it. “Yes” she cried” that is exactly what I need, that’s how they do it”
As she stepped outside clutching the umbrella proudly step by step she disengaged with her cat body and cat thinking and walked towards her family knowing she was now one of them and would not be kept outside again