She was still a young kitten that night, a tiny ball of black and white, separated from her mother much too soon, completely lost in a brand new world, only slowly getting familiar with all those senses and abilities we, humans, could never understand. She was still to get her future name, Lusia, and she wasn’t able to do anything very well just yet. That did not stop her from trying, though, starting with the simple things: Awkwardly crawling around. Touching something with her paw. And squeaking, just on the verge of becoming meowing.
The whole family was gone on a trip of some sort. I stayed behind to take care of Lusia, and to prepare for my final high school exams. It was a simple, brutal recipe: day = cramming, night = sleeping, but this night that tiny ball of black and white realized her powers over me for the first time in her very short life, and decided to amend that recipe a little bit.
Day = cramming. Night = squeaking.
She started making noises around 2am. I just barely fell asleep and didn’t make too much of it. Half-awake, I warmed up some milk, put it in a little bottle, and tried to feed her. It didn’t work. It’s always worked before. Suddenly, I was on an uncharted territory.
I petted her, and I talked to her. We had a lively conversation about politics, perhaps, or the latest episode of ER.
I read to her, and I sang to her: I am guessing something from the Pet Shop Boys’s early repertoire.
I meowed to her, and I quizzed her, from the text books I hated so much just earlier that day.
I carried her around, and I tried to play with her, quite possibly starting her future off-the-charts addiction to anything tinfoil-related.
We programmed Pascal and watched TV together. Just enough infomercials for her to develop immense pity about what we value as a human race.
All of those, and many more, failed. She would keep on squeaking. I was sleepy, exhausted, possibly — re-reading some of the descriptions above — already severely delusional, and growing more than a bit frustrated. With the clock having already forgotten 3am (where did she find all this energy?) it was desperation rather than creativity that fueled the last idea: maybe I could just wish her to sleep?
So I lay down on my bed, put her on my belly and my hands around her, hoping that somehow she would get a hint, that somehow she would just fall asleep with me.
In the decade following that night she would surprise me in a number of ways. There was the Mosquito Incident, the seminal event that established the new worldwide base reading for feline laziness. There was The Pee Spree of 2001, which had me throwing away some of my books for the first and last time in my life. And too many examples of me trying to reestablish my dominion over my own bed, only to inevitably find myself in the morning at the periphery — if not downright suburbia — with Lusia neatly positioned in its very geometrical center. How did she do that? I never found out.
That night, it was time for her to surprise me for the first time. She started slowly exploring around, and then suddenly she stopped meowing and did something new, but something that was obvious in hindsight. I forgot there was one thing she already knew very well how to do.
The tiny ball of black and white went straight for my left nipple.
The three seconds it took for me to realize what was going on and put a stop to it were the same three seconds during which I formed a profound respect for everyone who ever had to or will have to breastfeed. It did not seem like fun. It hurt like I had no idea.
But, apparently, for Lusia, as futile as that instinctive attempt turned out to be, it was enough. Her last deed for the night was a few seconds long, uneven, clumsy, lovely attempt at purring. After that, she rewrote the rules back to day = cramming, night = sleeping.
But something changed. A thought occurred to me, of the kind that only happen at 4am in the morning: what if it was her who was growing more and more annoyed at me all that time for not figuring out what she wanted to do?
Perhaps I have already fallen in love with her right then and there.
(Lusia, if you ever read this, remember our promise: even if any of your future eight lives finds you equipped with a larynx, you can not tell this story to anyone.)
— San Francisco, April 2011.
For Crystal.