Once upon a time, a young girl lived in a very small house by the sea. She did not like the sea. It was loud and always moving, surrounded by hot, gritty sand, and filled with things that terrified her: sharks, snakes, jellyfish, things that stung and bit and ate little girls hapless enough to swim into their paths.
She didn't like the sea, but she liked her house, and the life she lived by the sea she disliked. She liked her mother, her father, her sisters and brothers, and her cat, Charles Dickens.
No cat in the world has ever been as smart as Charles Dickens was. There was once a cat in another world who was mad and a hatter and twice as smart, who knew how to vanish into thin air, and I think Charles Dickens must have been distantly related to him. Charles could not talk, but he could speak with his eyes, and the things he said were always very wise, or funny, or sharp.
One day, as the girl and Charles Dickens were wandering aimlessly around the beach, letting the salt-water lick their toes, the girl looked down at her cat and said, "I like it here, Charles. I like my family. I have a good life. But I don't like the sea. It is big and cold and terrible. It tastes like over-salted chips."
Charles looked up at her and spoke with his eyes. "I don't like it, either. I'm a cat. We hate water."
The girl smiled. There was a silence, except for the irritating crashing of the waves that never ceased.
"I prefer trees, myself," continued the cat.
The girl stopped, surprised. "Trees? Like the palm trees here?"
"No, dear. Different kinds of trees. Pines. Birches. Oaks. Lovely, lovely oaks."
"I've never seen them."
"No, you haven't. You were born on this beach and have never left."
Another silence.
Slowly, the girl turned from the cat and stared out over the sea. Far out over the waves a little sailboat tumbled across the blue-green. A man who loves the sea, she thought. Like my father and mother. He is happy. Am I unhappy?
I am unhappy. I hate the sea. It's so cold.
"I'd like to sea the oaks."
Charles Dickens smiled to himself. A plan had already formed in his mind.
"We'll go see them, then."
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The girl tip-toed across the floor, carefully stepping over the boards that creaked. It had taken all of Charles' brain power to convince her to leave her home, but eventually he had.
"After all," his eyes had said, "You hate the sea."
"But I love my family. My brothers and sisters, my parents."
"But you are old enough to leave them."
"They'll never let me."
"Better to ask forgiveness than permission."
And so that night, as soon as her parents had fallen asleep (she could hear her father's snores now), she had packed her bag with clothes, food, and some treats for Charles, and prepared herself to leave.
Now she stood on the threshold of her door, frightened, trembling, pale. One foot hovered over the stone pavement outside the house; her hands clutched the handles of her bag, her knuckles white, her fingers shaking. She looked out across the tall grass the grew near the sand. She glanced back inside. Her father's and oldest brother's snores called out to her, called her back.
An especially large wave crashed outside.
She slowly turned to face the sea, pivoting on her foot, her other leg still raised. There was the sea, cold, deep, dark, angry and frightening. The clouds which lined the sky shifted for a second, the moon shone through. Blinking, she saw the dark outline of the cat, squatting in the way cats do, staring at her, waiting; his eyes glittered in the moonlight.
With sudden courage, she put her foot down on the pavement.
"I'm ready," she whispered.
The dark outline nodded, the eyes blinked. For a moment Charles seemed to vanish, and then the green bulbs appeared again, closer.
The girl took a deep breath.
The clouds slipped over the moon again. When next the white rays shone down again, the girl and the cat were long, long gone.
***********************
For years the world worried. The family in the little house on the beach was like an ant pile that has been stepped on. They were terrified, running about, trying to keep busy to distract themselves from the pain and fear by doing everything they could to look for her.
But after a while, the world forgot about the little girl who hated the beach. They forgot about her genius cat whose eyes spoke. They forgot about her family. They never forgot the girl, but after a while, they knew it was time to give up hope. They stopped looking. They moved on with their lives.
The girl was in a forest, deep, deep in the uninhabited regions of Alaska. There it was always cold, and there was no sand -- only soft, powdery, snow. And trees. Warm, inviting, loving trees. So very different from the sea.
Charles Dickens lived with her. For years it was just the two of them, until one day a stray female cat wandered into their midst. She was a prim, proper little lady, despite her ragged fur. And she was smart. Not as smart as Charles, of course. But she was smart, and rather pretty. Charles and the girl happily accepted her, and in a few months, there were kittens.
And there were trees. And the girl loved the kittens, and Charles, and the lady-cat, and the trees. She loved them, and she was happy.
*********************
A young man wandered through the woods, his gun slung over his back. He whistled a cheery tune. He had had a great time hunting in these woods, though he hadn't caught anything.
Birds were chirping, leaves were rustling, the wind was singing...
Cats were meowing?
**********************
The young man and the girl (now a young woman) got married. After he convinced her to return to society, of course. Her family was there. They were really mad, at first, but then her parents realized that if they had ever been trapped in a forest (they hated trees) they would have left for the sea without a second thought.
They were a strange family. Full of love, happiness, and longing.
The man and the woman had ten children. Five of them moved to the sea. Three moved to the country in the southern United States to build ranches. Two stayed with their parents in the forests of Alaska.
They kept cats as long as they lived. After a while, Charles Dickens and his lady-cat got old and gray-furred, and they did die. To the last, though Charles' green eyes shone and the dark, and spoke as though they had a voice. And he was always the most intelligent cat in this world.
And the woman and the man and their two children still had one of Charles' kittens, and her name was Beatrix. She had green eyes, and they could speak.
And the woman always was the young girl inside. She spoke to cats and hated the sea. And to the very end, she loved trees with all her heart. She loved them.
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A note from me: This story has no point, unless you want to find your own meaning in it. I had the sudden urge to write a story, and it needed to be of pure whimsy, and a cat needed to talk. As Mark Twain said, "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."
Okay, so there's a plot... But whatever! :) I hope you enjoyed!
(Photo credit: Dan Heller his website here)
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