AUTHOR | ALICE NASH

16/07/2023

I haven’t written anything for my website for more than four months since my last post. It’s partly because I tend to be laid-back unless there is a deadline to meet. Besides, as writing is not something I do for a living, I have other unavoidable commitments for my immediate attention. 

Being a landlady, I certainly have fundamental commitment for what it provides me with the essential and desirable quality of life, and it comes with responsibility for the tenants and houses which demand my time and attention whenever a problem occurs, here, there, be it a building work, change a roof, fix whatever is broking, all have to be promptly sorted. 

Apart from that, I have been writing my new manuscript, which is not only unfinished with the first drift, the most important stage to sketch an outline of the story on my computer before developing it further, in terms of details and literary appeal, editing them in the second drift, but also it is untitled yet! 

But to be objective, writing is about reflection of something from the outside world that touches your nerve(s), about sterling up feelings, striking a chord in your heart. So the saying goes: ‘Indignation produces fine poets’ was not without reason, not at all surprising. It’s a creative metaphor depicts that writing is a psychological or moral sensuous response to the outside world, its beauty or grotesqueness, its fairness or unfairness and so on. And in this boundless world of ours, we are not lacking in unusualness, but our mind and heart are not responsive to everything that happens around us, be it unintended, be it insensitive, we humans have a naturally selective sense of what to, or not to, respond.

I myself tend to overlook things that happen outside of my immediate world; and, often, consciously unnoticed things happen within my surroundings, and that cavalier attitude shaped me with a unbothered rather than unbowed manner toward the outside, knowing that it’d be foolish for one to take oneself too seriously. 

Oh! Getting back to the point, what am I writing for today’s Random Notes? Not the complexity of human life, but the adorable creatures of cats, a cute black cat and a perverse ginger cat who had suddenly become the residents of my house after my daughter moved in along with her pets two years ago. So, you got it, strictly speaking, although I am the owner of the house, I am not the owner of the cats. 

I had neither been euphoric nor unhappy with pets in general terms, but I had chosen not to own one, mainly because the pets’ downy features would irritate my skin, so I was pretty on tenterhooks toward the new situation of co-existence with the pets. Thankfully, either my daughter kept them downstairs while I occupied the upstairs, or the clever cats sensed my caution, they were usually out of my sight.

I can’t recall since when, the black cat started to imperceptibly appear on my floor, usually quietly curling up on the corner of the rag, sometimes looked drowsily closed its eyes in repose, sometimes with its eyes downcast as if was laden with hesitation about if its comfortable existence would bring some unwanted attention and be disturbed, or if it would be welcomed; sometimes, it would timidly get closer to me with a look of caution that made me wonder how to read its mood, was it meant harmlessly get to know me, or a sentimental attachment to an unfamiliar human creature? And just as I was curiously guessing, it would lightly signal the sound of ‘Miaooo’, so sweet that it would melt any of my unknowingly vigilance down, and I just wanted to give it a hug.

But I never did. Perhaps its hairy feature stopped me from getting too closer to it, or perhaps a slight fear hanging on the back of my mind reminding me to be careful, that apart from its cute and drowsy feature of sweetness, it had very sharp claws, getting too closer could frighten us both, and the thought that then its claws could instantly attack my face run cold.

As time goes by, knowing that it would not be unwelcome, the black cat likes to come upstairs without attention demanding, curling up somewhere within my sight with a look of quietness and sweetness, peacefully accompanying me while I am doing whatever I do. 

Like the human each has its character, the ginger cat is distinctly different from the gentle black cat. 

It is usually quietly hidden somewhere in the house, or in the garden, as often it’s out of my sight, so is out of my mind. But once the ginger cat appears, it would make a scene. I started to notice it on my return from outside and seeing my rubbish bin in the study was pushed over with the papers and sweet corn-cop scattered around the floor, as if someone looked something from the bin; sometimes the study would have a funny smell. I wondered who made the scene until my daughter told me one day to lock my bedroom door, because the ginger cat has an ability to jump and turn the door handle to open the door, and stay in the bedroom and sometimes pee on the bed, and it especially liked sweet corn, the smell of it would bring it to the upstairs. I realised that the ginger cut has a very different disposition as to the black cut, so strikingly different as if personification of cats, while one is sensitive and sweet, another is quiet but aggressive.

While neither can I hug the cute one out of unaccountable fear, nor can I kick the aggressive one as I have no alternative, I learned how to peacefully live with the adorable cuts under the same roof, that is something to be cheerful about.