Untamed

by Dorothee Lang

She came to visit me again today. Walked in the room as if we had an appointment. Circled me three times like this is all it would take to get what she wanted. And I have to admit it: she is as right as coffee in the morning, as right as washed-out blue jeans. She gives me one of her mystic green looks and then makes herself comfortable in my lap, expecting to get her share of comfort and caress now, ignoring all objections.

How could I withstand her? How could I not smile and lay aside all my plans for some minutes, stop the time for some moments? It feels like life just gave me a little red-patterned extra-blessing. One you can't buy, one you can't steal, one you can only hope for. For cats only come to you if they want to. Like rays of sunlight in a cloudy sky. Brightening up your day, giving you some warm purrs. Waking up the cat inside yourself, the part of you that resists taming, the lake of wilderness that sleeps in your soul.

There's no escaping her. You can cover the floor with newspaper pages, she will find exactly the lines you're reading, to choose them as the place to lie down, with the same ease she can divide people into cat-fondlers and non-cat-fondlers. Making me believe it's true what they say, that cats have nine lives. That they have a sixth sense. Maybe they acquire it during their first life, and hold on to it when they enter the next. Maybe they found a way to let their mind wander, breathing in thoughts and emotions like I breathe in air. Maybe that is the reason why they spend half of their lives in the land of dreams -- or rather: in another dimension. Not dreaming cat-dreams, but tigering through space and time. Not afraid of the wilderness, but exploring it with hearts wide open.

And then she leaves again, just like she came, without warning. Leaves me sitting here with my plans that somehow turned into imitations of life. Leaves me sitting here, dreaming of following her trail to the wild side.

The Author

Dorothee Lang is a writer and net artist. She lives in an old house with highspeed connection in South Germany, where she is editing the BluePrintReview and working on a travel novel. Her prose, poetry and web art have recently appeared in Sunday Herald and Surface, CautionaryTale and Word Riot, Pedestal and Pindeldyboz, among others. To see some of her latest pieces, visit her virtual gallery at blueprint21.de.