Once upon a lupine nightmare, there was this cat who wasn’t a cat, but she wore cat makeup and cat clothes and acted like a proper cat and nobody knew she wasn’t a cat. The cat was two wolves in a wolf body, the one dancing merrily to No Limit, the other crying to Creep, because the cat was raised in the nineties and she was stuck there musically. The cat couldn’t recall who first showed her that wolves are dangerous, she couldn’t remember how she decided she didn’t want her wolf nature anymore, she couldn’t tell when she first knew that cats are beautiful and attractive and wolves aren’t.
There were subtle signs, but no one noticed. She didn’t meow often, but she often sought company. Wolves are meant to live in company and she was desperately trying to find her pack, but there was no pack, and she belonged nowhere, and she was sad when she remembered that there are no packs in a cat world, that there are only colonies and other unsafe places she was afraid to join. She played stray and independent, like she didn’t need other cats, and other cats approached her, but she was tired and exhausted from feigning catness all the time, and once she let her guards down, when a little wolfish part of her rose up and made an appearance, other cats called her weird and left, and she was alone again.
The cat spent most of her free time at home, where she undressed and washed her face and the two hidden wolves weren’t hidden anymore, and she was free. She made wolf art alone at home, art she couldn’t share with anyone, because it’d mean she’d have to admit to her wolf nature, but then cats invented machines that made wolfish art, and she gave up, because it felt like a lost battle, like the cat world laughed at her face and said, we won, and she lost hope that one day she could have a happy life among fellow wolves.
When the Famous Kitty, the influencer of a million followers, asked her to join her for a TikTok video, the cat burst with joy at first. That was her chance at last, the moment she’d been waiting for and worked hard for. She’d be loved, she’d be adored, she wouldn’t need to look for a pack anymore, the pack would form around her and she would perhaps lead someday. But for the time being, she was glad someone noticed her, and that she’d have a chance to be loyal and serve, which was close to her nature, the nature she had refused to endorse. Perhaps she couldn’t have a happy life among a pack of wolves, but she could have a happy life among a spectacle of cats.
She kept on acting like a cat, but in her free time, she did more wolfish things, like helping other wolves who never learned to act like cats and save themselves. Her so-called cat friends wondered sometimes, they called her stupid for wasting time on the unfortunate, and sometimes she wondered if they were right, because the cat world was winning, and in the cat world, it is considered stupid to help, or ask for help, and with time, the word ‘help’ vanished, and the cat couldn’t do something there was no word for.
When the Famous Kitty asked her to pose, the cat tried her best to pose as a cat, but her attempts proved futile. She wasn’t photogenic. The more the clicks, the more the mask faded away and revealed her wolf features. The Famous Kitty frowned, and the cat saw the frown and she tried harder and harder to look natural and easy-going, like a cat should, but the more she tried, the more the mask melted on her face, as if the lights were too hot and too demanding. It didn’t take long for both of them to give up. The cat ran away in shame seconds before the Famous Kitty started screaming about how she wasted her time.
The cat howled at the moon at night when no one could see her. She felt a special affection for the moon, because the moon refused to pose in photos, the moon was always, unapologetically, the moon, without caring if others liked it or not, the moon wasn’t photogenic, unlike, let’s say, Christmas trees, or cherry blossoms, or natural born cats.
Once upon a lupine nightmare, where wolves are the villains, where homo homini lupus est, and the big bad wolf eats Little Red Riding Hood and blows away houses, the cat had no option but to hide under the mask, and under that mask the two wolves united and became one again, she was performative before performative was a trend, and in time she realized she’d never be a true cat, but she didn’t want to either, that in the cat world she’d always stay a bit weird, but she didn’t mind, and that she would never thrive as a cat, because she wasn’t a cat, and she felt lucky and grateful she found out how to perform, and that no one knew she did. She felt lucky she found a way to survive in the cat world, and she’d wait in the shadows, until someday, scratch by scratch, she’d build a wolf world where she’d belong.