If I were A Cat

Written by: Rizka Nafiah

“Sharon, close your book while you’re eating. The egg toast might get jealous with it,” an Irish lady with lovely short dark brown hair was preparing breakfast for her family on a round table with floral tablecloth on it.

“Just three more paragraphs, Mom. Look! Dad is also reading newspaper while eating.”

“What? Daddy’s not eating yet.”

“Don’t make me say it twice, sweetie…”

“Okay… Okay, Mom.” Sharon sighed and closed her dusty thick book that didn’t look like a school material’s book at all. She ate the last half toast on her plate hurriedly just to avoid any debate in the morning with her mom and so she could continue reading the cut paragraph on her way to school.

It was in the beginning of summer when the sun shined so brightly and warm. Sharon walked on the street while reading the thick book on her hands and a bag on her shoulders that both of them looked so much heavy for a 150 cm middle school girl with eye-glasses. Her bags looked bigger than her, swinging to the right and left while she’s walking and reading, all at once. Sharon believed only she could do this at once, indeed. Somehow, she barely ever stubbed on the street doing this every day. Nothing could easily disturb her while she’s focused on her books. The sound of cars, people chattering, firework, lightening, phone ringing; everything, except one.

“When the wolf gets hurt, the moon cries… The blue-moon bestows a power to its soul through the night for revenge, and…”

“Meow…” Sharon stopped reading and looked down fast hearing its voice felt so close to her. It meowed again right beside her legs now.

It was a thin black cat spoiling its body on Sharon’s feet gently. Sharon’s eyes turned wide and her leg felt eerie with it.

“A… A CAT!” she reflexively kicked the black cat like a female soccer player doing a penalty. It was flung away for about 2 meters from Sharon’s feet into bushes. Sharon knew she didn’t mean to do that, but she couldn’t help it. Her body was moving without her order.

The cat gazed at Sharon in pain, deep into her eyes. They’re green, the eyes, and the pupils were big and dark. It then turned around and ran away until it wasn’t seen anymore. What was that look? Cat didn’t normally gaze into human’s eyes that deeply.

She stood like a statue for a moment, but then she moved again. Well, she didn’t really care about the gaze anyway. It’s just a cat. It’ll be healed soon after this. It wasn’t injured nor bleeding though. While everything had been back to normal, she wanted to continue her reading. It seemed that Sharon was unconsciously closed her book before she kicked the cat. Now she had to find the last page she read.

“Ah, which page was it? Why can’t I see the letters?” Sharon flipped every pages on the book, then rubbed her eyes with fingers. Nothing had changed. The pages were still blank. She was aware that it wasn’t a dream. She even still remembered what she just read. “When the wolf cries… Nope. The blue-moon cries… Which one cries?” Why can’t she remember it now? Sharon closed the book and ran as fast as she could to school. Something must went wrong, but why?

It wasn’t her book that she was reading. The day before, while Sharon wanted to take her notebook for today’s exam in the classroom, she intuitively saw a strange thick old book in someone’s drawer. It was locked. Perhaps it’s an old diary. She just wanted to peek a little, but then she ended up bringing it home to read it. She had promised to herself that she would definitely return the book on its place the next day morning before everyone was there. After what had happened, she thought the owner might get surprised if he or she knew the book was blank without letters, so she changed her mind.

Sharon started observing the person who owned the desk with the book she saw yesterday. It was one of her classmate. She didn’t remember his name, but she once saw him playing baseball, accidently. When a ball almost smashed Sharon’s head, this guy shouted and made Sharon stopped her steps and avoided the ball luckily.

“How can an extrovert guy who plays baseball have this kind of book? Does he even write this weird fiction?” was her thought. He seemed fine joking with others and didn’t look for something from his drawer anyway. “Maybe he forgets about his own book,” Sharon walked closer and asked him intuitively, “Excuse me, do you not see a book with brown cover? It’s thick, old, and smelly. I thought I saw it somewhere yesterday, but today it isn’t here anymore. Maybe you know something about it?”

The guy was speechless for a moment. “Nope, I think you asked the wrong person.”

“Very well, then. Thank you,” Sharon left the guy, but before that, she saw him smiled slightly. Well, Sharon might just ignore it anyway. Her head was full of questions about that book.

The night after, in her room, Sharon was lying on her bed, contemplating for a moment. She turned off the lamp and covered herself with a thick blanket. The moon was full and shining from the opened window. In her hands, there was that book which she had not opened since that morning. She wanted to open it one more time and wished after this she would be able to see the letters in that anonymous’ book.

“Whose book is this actually?” she said in a very soft voice and opened the book at a random page. It was still blank like before. Disappointedly, she almost closed the book when she saw a vague small spot like a word on the page.

Yours.

“Yours?” Sharon opened the other pages confusedly, and it’s the same word that she saw. “Was it already there since this morning? I thought it was a blank page.”

No. I just answered it.

The “yours” was changed into those sentences. Sharon didn’t shout nor threw the book for what she had seen. Yes, she recognized this kind of situation before. It was in JK. Rowling’s novel, Harry Potter. She closed the book and put it on her small desk next to her bed.

“I am dreaming,” said her.

Sharon closed her eyes and tried to sleep for a moment, hoping she would come back to the real life once she’s awake.

To be continued.