I'm Trapped as a Cat?

Have you ever been at such a complete and utter loss that you want to just sit down and cry? You know, curl up in a pair of fluffy pajamas and eat a whole tub of ice cream and curse all of the things in your life that have gone wrong?

That was me in this moment.

I wanted to cry, I really did. But there is one very important fact that was preventing me.

Cats can't cry.

I mewed pathetically and pawed at the door, but even if Arthur had heard me I doubt he would have changed me back. So I did the only thing I could think of that would sufficiently drown my sorrows.

I surrendered to the cat in me.

I know it sounds strange, and I will try to explain it as best I can, but trust me it may be a bit confusing.

I was still me, but I was also a cat. It was like someone had taken me and a cat and smooshed them into one brain. I could remember things about my human life, but I couldn't put words to them. It was like the whole higher reasoning and word formation section of my brain was gone. I thought more in feelings and pictures than in words, if that makes any sense at all. And it probably doesn't, because I couldn't even make sense of it. Frustrated, I regressed into the mind of the cat.

It was like the whole world had been hiding from me before. The smells! The glorious smells! All's I had to do was take a little sniff of the air, and I knew who had walked there recently, which dogs had peed on the lampost down the street, and a million other things my cat brain understood that I can't even begin to describe. It was easy to be washed away in this ocean of smells, and I found myself wandering along down the street, sniffing here and there.

And then there was sight! And hearing! And grace! I bunched up my powerful leg muscles and sprung over 4 feet straight up and landed daintily on a fencepost. I know 4 feet doesn't sound like much but to a cat that is less than a foot tall? That would be like you jumping over 30 feet high and landing on a bridge less than 6 inches wide with all the agility and grace of an olympiad. I was more than a little thrilled. Talk about extreme sports!

Hearing was amazing. I could pinpoint the direction of a sound so much more completely than before. I could feel my ears swiveling this way and that, listening to every squeak and rustle.

Sight was definitely interesting. One of the first things I noticed was how much easier it was to see in the dark. It seemed that my cat eyes actually preferred it. I could see some color, like I said before, but it seemed boring now. As a human my sight had been fine tuned to pick out shapes and colors, but as a cat all I could concentrate on was movement. Every little twitch of the grass or rustle of the leaves stood out to me.

It had something to do with my whiskers. They could detect every little change in the air current, pressure and temperature, sending me an overload of information that only the cat could sort out. By analyzing the change in the air, the cat could determine the placement of certain objects, some of which I couldn't even physically see. Like the lampost behind me for example. I wasn't looking at it, but the way the air flow was disturbed by its presence was picked up by my whiskers, giving me a mental picture of the lampost. Pretty cool huh?

I let the cat part of me run the show because I was still too depressed with my current situation to do anything else. I wandered down the street, smelling this, playing with that, listening to the insects go whizzing by. After a while I began to vaguely recognize the scenery and somewhere in the back of my mind the human girl named Faylinn offered some insight.

This is my neighborhood.

The cat in me ignored these words, writing them off as meaningless. I continued up the street, until something caught my attention.

A mouse! My ears swiveled to the left. I could smell his musty odor, and it was overwhelming.

He was in that field of grass over there, I could hear him chewing away on a nut.

It was like a switch had been flipped, and I found myself hunkering down low to the ground, my belly scraping the grass beneath me. Everything else disappeared, it was just me and mousey. I could see him now, nibbling on his little chestnut. Silly mousey, you should be more careful. I positioned myself downwind, cloaking my own scent. He was no match for me, I was a queen among vermin.

He was mine.

Just as I was ready pounce on the little guy the wind shifted and he took off in a panic. My cat brain was pleased, she enjoyed the chase. I stalked him deliberately through the grass. He couldn't escape ME! He suddenly darted out of the grass and under some stupid wooden construction. I leaped after him and chased him out the other side, onto more wood. I was just about to go in for the kill when I was blinded by light. My ears pressed flat to my skull and I backed away from this unknown threat. A familiar scent wafted towards me, one that even my human brain recognized because of my pathetic obsession. The smell penetrated my human self to the core, forcing me to remember that I wasn't only a cat.

It was the unmistakable odor of Maverick Swift.

Oh my GOD! I did NOT just get all caught up stalking mice on Maverick Swift's back porch! Kill me now God, please just kill me now...

The cat in me was confused and frightened by this turn of events, and I found myself backing slowly under the porch. And then he spoke, just as dreamy as I remembered.

"Hey there! What's a pretty little thing like you doing out here? You look too well fed to be a stray... Where's your collar kitty?"

His words calmed me, but I couldn't understand it all. It sounded something like this:

"Habble Babble! Wabba pretty little thing libble dibbleow here? Yahloo towa fed toby a stray... Webba yah cola kitty?"

What going on? Why can't I understand anyone?! This sucks. How am I ever going to get out of this mess? Maybe I should just run away...

I turned to run away, but he stepped in front of me, blocking my retreat.

"It's okay kitty. I'm not going to hurt you!"

What's his game? Who would have thought Maverick liked animals?

"Well, I've always wanted a kitty, ever since I was young. Maybe dad'll let me keep you, maybe..." his eyes lost some of their sparkle as he said this.

I still couldn't really understand what he was saying. All the cat seemed to pick up were words like, "kitty" or "food". It was aggravating. I was dying to know what he was saying.

"Oh well. I guess one night couldn't hurt. Come on kitty, lets go inside."

He knelt down and began to stroke me. I was in ectasy. A sudden vibration in my throat startled my human self, until I realized I was purring. The cat in me was beginning to like Maverick, and before I could stop myself I was rubbing my head on his knee. It was short lived.

Suddenly I was in the air, squashed into his chest, matting my fur. The cat realized it had been duped, and a deep grumble began to form in the back of my throat. The cat was angry about this giant thing that had intruded on its hunting expedition, and now it was cramping her style. I hissed uncontrollably, and squirmed in a futile attempt to resist.

"Now now, I thought we were buddies? Don't be like that." He lifted his other arm to stabilize me and gave me a quick scratch behind the ears. The motion unleashed another wave of Mavericks cologne, and the human in me battled for dominance over the animal instinct to flee.

Get over yourself Faylinn! Now you have the perfect spot to stake out the house. Maybe there's still a chance I can save mom. And besides, you gotta love being stuck to Mavericks chest. This could work out better than I had hoped.

I finally managed to stuff the frantic impulse to run into the back of my mind. After I stopped squirming, Maverick turned to open the backdoor.

"I think I'll call you Maya, after my favorite poet. I hope you like it."

And just like that, I was no longer Faylinn Venture. I was Mavericks pet, Maya Swift.