By James Gonda.
Inspired by Marc Chagall’s painting The Cat Transformed into a Woman, circa 1928-31.
(1)
In the small town of Pine Island in southeastern Minnesota, a tabby named Mocha lived with her human guardian, Anita. They had been companions since Mocha was a kitten. For all the love and attention that Anita bestowed upon her cat, Mocha felt an ache within her chest—a longing for connections that transcended the bounds of feline existence.
Then one clear night in September, as Mocha perched by the window, a shooting star streaked across the sky. With a flicker of hope in her eyes, she made a wish: to experience the world beyond the confines of her furry form.
To Mocha’s astonishment, the heavens answered her call. In an instant, she felt a tingling sensation ripple through her body. She shimmered and shifted. Her fur gave way to smooth skin and her paws morphed into delicate hands. She gazed at her reflection in the windowpane; her heart pounded with excitement. With trembling fingers, she touched the glass and marveled at the homo sapiens staring back at her.
Meanwhile, Anita had dozed off in her recliner. A book had slipped from her grasp. The sound of something tapping against the windowpane stirred her awake. She sat up. “What’s that noise?” she murmured to herself. She scanned the dimly lit room and noticed Mocha’s empty spot by the window. Anita made her way to the source of the sound. As she approached the window, there in the moonlight stood Mocha in human form. Anita stumbled backwards in shock. “Mocha?” she whispered. The human-shaped creature turned to Anita; their eyes met in an exchange of recognition. Anita was awestruck at the miraculous being before her. “Mocha, is that really you?” The figure nodded. With a hesitant step forward, Mocha closed the space between them. “Mocha, what . . . what happened?” Mocha struggled to find the words. “I made a wish upon a shooting star,” she began, her voice unfamiliar to her own ears. “I wanted to experience more, to see the world differently.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know. It just happened.”
Anita reached out with caution. “You’re . . . human now?”
Mocha nodded. “It seems so.”
Anita took a deep breath. “What are we going to do?”
Mocha’s eyes filled with uncertainty. “I don’t know. I didn’t expect this.”
(2)
Anita noticed that despite Mocha’s human form, she retained a lot of her feline charm: a playful sway of her hips, a cat-like grace in her movements, and a set of slightly pointed ears poking through chestnut hair. Mocha also mirrored gestures of her previous self: rubbing against Anita with a purr and curling up beside her with a contented sigh. And she kept her penchant for napping in odd places, such as a narrow space between the kitchen cabinets and the ceiling, or on the rug in the hallway.
Before too long, with breathless excitement, Mocha set out into Pine Island. She watched vehicles zoom by. Neon signs flashed here and there. Music—odd sounds, for sure—poured from open windows. Voices rose and fell too, mingling with children’s laughter and the bark of a distant dog. Various smells captivated her. At times, the air was thick with the aroma of food, flavors, and spices. She caught whiffs of freshly baked bread and bubbling hot dishes.
Anita’s efforts to integrate Mocha into human life were tireless. She guided Mocha through the intricacies of human behavior. She taught her basic manners and the nuances of social interaction. She also enrolled Mocha in Community Ed to improve her language skills.
Despite Anita’s dedication, Mocha’s feline instincts held her captive. She felt a pang of longing when she saw a cat darting across the street or heard the mewling of kittens in an alley. She yearned for open spaces and the thrill of the hunt. She remained fascinated with shiny objects, leading to a collection of trinkets around the house—she could not resist the urge to flit upon anything that caught her eye: a silver coin on the sidewalk or a shiny piece of jewelry in a shop window. She kept her fascination with chasing shadows or the need to perch on high vantage points to survey her surroundings. She also spent more and more time wandering the streets at night; she would disappear for hours, dissolving into the darkness without a trace.
Though Mocha longed for acceptance and belonging, she could not escape the reality of her limbo between worlds. People often hurried past, their faces glued to their phones or lost in conversation, unaware of the creature who was neither fully cat nor fully human. Some recoiled when they saw her pointed ears or when she exhibited overt feline behavior, such as grooming herself. Each interaction with people reinforced her sense of estrangement, widening the void between her and the domain she wished to inhabit.
One afternoon Anita and Mocha joined a group of people chatting in a café. Anita encouraged Mocha to join the conversation about the weather, an innocuous topic. “The temperature today is quite pleasant, don’t you think?” Anita remarked, sipping her coffee.
Mocha nodded. She scanned the sky outside the shop’s window. “There’s more to the sun and sky than you know,” she said with a meow-like inflection.
Others turned to her, curious. “Oh? How do you mean?” someone asked.
Mocha took a deep breath. “Well, you see, the air is crisp today, tinged with the promise of rain. The earth is breathing, exhaling its secrets into the wind.”
The group exchanged puzzled glances, unsure of how to respond. Some chuckled while others shifted in their seats.
“And the scent of rain on the horizon,” Mocha continued, “It’s like a melody, playing on the edge of perception. Don’t you feel it in your bones?”
Her words hung in the air, met with silence. The humans exchanged another round of glances, this time tinged with uncertainty. “Yeah, right, that’s . . . interesting,” someone muttered.
Anita shot Mocha a sympathetic smile. “Perhaps we should talk about something else.”
Mocha clung to the hope that she would assimilate with people, over time. All the while, Anita watched with concern and understanding. She knew Mocha’s quest to find her place was far from over. She vowed to support Mocha as her former cat teetered between worlds.
(3)
One evening as Mocha prowled the streets, she stumbled upon an alleyway behind a row of shops. There, beneath the glow of a flickering streetlamp, she spotted a group of cats huddled together. Their eyes glinted in the darkness. A sense of recognition washed over Mocha as she approached the clowder. These were her kin, her fellow felines. Without hesitation, Mocha joined them, reveling in the warmth of camaraderie. For the first time since her transformation, she felt a sense of belonging. Among those cats, she was not an outsider or a curiosity; she was one of them: a creature of the night, free to meander and explore as she pleased.
As the moon glowed in the darkness, Mocha and her newfound companions embarked on a midnight adventure. They darted through the dimness and chased imaginary prey. And it was then, in the sights and sounds of the nocturnal world, that she thought she found her place.
As the night wore on, Mocha felt tugs at her heartstrings. She enjoyed the company of the cats but could not erase the memories of her life with Anita: the warmth of their home, the comfort of their shared moments, the mutual affection that had bound them together. Mocha knew that forsaking her human companion would be excruciating. So, she bid her feline acquaintances farewell and made her way back to Anita.
As she approached the house, apprehension filled her insides. She needed to confront her feelings and decide where she should be. Finally, before the familiar door, she took a deep breath, and pushed it open. Anita was sitting by the fireplace, reading. She looked up. “Mocha?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Oh, my dear Mocha. I’ve missed you. Where have you been?” She got up and went to her. They embraced. Then Anita pulled back and rested her hands on Mocha’s shoulders. “You know, I’ve been thinking. You don’t have to choose between two worlds,” she offered. “You can embody your feline and human sides with pride.”
Mocha pondered Anita’s words, yet hesitation gnawed at her resolve. Could she reconcile the two halves of herself? The fear of being ostracized by humans for cat traits and rejected by her feline kin for human features loomed like a dark cloud. Anita’s hug provided comfort, but was it only a small act of kindness in a big, cold world?
In that moment of doubt, Mocha found a sliver of hope: with Anita’s direction, she believed she could navigate the jungle of identity. A sense of determination washed over her. She decided to stop cowering in the shadows (like a scaredy cat). Instead, she would forge ahead with her feline and human sides. “Thank you,” Mocha whispered to Anita. “Thank you for believing in me.”