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No. 633
I have a house; it’s a lovely little place. It’s neither too big nor too small. It’s warm enough that I don’t feel the cold, but not unpleasantly hot either. The furniture is quite comfortable, as well. I’m especially fond of the big chair near the window in the living room. That chair is my chair. Nobody else sits on my chair, so it’s mine alone.
In this house which is neither luxurious nor austere there live four rather silly people, and myself. First there is the mother; she’s a very silly lady. Always fussing about her appearance or getting worked up over trivial things. I’ve never before seen a woman who would get so worked up over the slightest little things. She has such a short temper sometimes. She really needs to learn to take it easy, I think.
Then there is the fat bald man. He’s quite a lazy person. He does things which upset the lady, so those two don’t get along very well. He’s always doing or saying things which he shouldn’t, so he gets yelled at a lot. I don’t think those two get along very well.
There are also two brothers living here. The younger brother is a very boisterous child. He’s loud and irritating, and very messy as well. He sometimes sits in my comfortable chair by the window. I don’t like him very much.
The older brother is my favourite of the four people. We’re very alike, you see. I know everything about him, and he knows all about me. We spend a lot of time together simply sitting around the house relaxing, or watching people walk by on the street from his bedroom window. The window looks down on the garden, and past that you can see the street all the way to the houses lined up on the other side of the road. I’m quite fond of that garden; it’s a pleasant place to relax on a nice sunny day.
That person seems so very lonely sometimes, though. I’m with him all the time, but he still seems so distant even after the six years we’ve spent together. His eyes have such a forlorn look to them. They often make him seem rather hollow, in a way. Like a puppet that’s been cast aside or a discarded mannequin that serves no purpose any more. I feel sorry for him, so I often try to comfort him. I know there’s little I can do for him, however.
One day, that person said something to me.
“You know what, Mia?” he asked me, a quizzical look spreading across his face. “I wish I could be a cat, sometimes.”
That statement confused me a little, so I didn’t know how to respond. I merely gave him a blank look and tilted my head to one side. He gave a slight giggle, but said no more. Instead he threw his arms out to his sides, and flopped gracefully – well, about as gracefully as a person is able to flop - back onto his bed.
He lay there for hours as he does every other day, simply staring at his ceiling thinking about things I’m not able to understand, or maybe just things he doesn’t want to put into words. I wish there was something I could do to comfort him, anything at all, but instead all I could do was lay beside him on his bed and stay silent as he kept all of his thoughts, all of his feelings, bottled up inside.
We two lay there for hours, simply enjoying the frail silence while it lasted. In this house, silence was a rare treasure. Something precious which one does not come across very often. So, we treasured moments like these. He seems to value this silence the most; that relaxed, gentle look on his face shows clearly the way he savours these moments. When I look at him like this, he seems to give off an air of handsome maturity more befitting of a man many times his own age, perhaps. That usual world-weary aura around him gives way to his true gentle nature in these moments alone.
While we share many similarities, we’re altogether very different from each other. While he has all of these problems and worries, I have no worries at all and lead a relatively simple, lazy life. In spite of that though, I think I’m able to understand him better than most. Even if his troubles and problems seem far-off or unfamiliar to me, I like to think I’m at least able to understand what kind of person he really is beneath all of that. He’s really such a kind and generous person, that’s the reason I often have trouble understanding what could possibly be weighing on his mind all the time.
A sudden noise shatters the fragile silence the two of us had been savouring. It’s the sound of the front door opening as the little brother returns from school, parading his way into the house with the same level of noise as a small marching band. The atmosphere ruined, that person rises from his position on the bed and gradually lifts himself to his feet. With a look of bitter resignation on his face, he turns his gentle gaze on me once more before departing downstairs, likely to make himself a cup of tea. Leaping off the bed after him, I decide to follow. I could use a drink too, I think.
Patting at his legs, I try to divert his attention from the boiling kettle to my empty bowl. It takes a moment for it to register on his face, but then he seems to understand what it is I’m after. Opening the fridge to take out a bottle of milk, he pours a generous amount into my bowl, and then some more into his own cup for his tea. Purring gently, I lap away at the milk in my bowl as he makes his way back to the room he shares with his little brother.
Even if I have trouble understanding what bothers him, he seems to have no problems figuring me out. Perhaps I’m simply easier to read, or perhaps it’s just that humans are more complicated creatures than cats after all.
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