erin

brief conversation with a traveling cat

There’s a cat walking in the road alongside me and after it keeps pace with me for a bit I ask if it can talk, a habit I developed with all cats from a young age (though none of them ever could).

“That’s mostly Japanese cats,” this cat answers in a deep voice that sounds the way sandpaper feels.

“Like Siamese cats?” I ask, thinking I might have misheard him.

“No, like cats who live in Japan.”

“Oh,” I say, and he doesn’t say anything else and I wonder if I’ve only ever asked Canadian cats if they can talk before and had thought the muteness a quality of cats in general and not Canadian ones in particular.

The cat and I walk together in silence down the street until we reach an intersection and when I stop to wait for the walk signal he stops as well, sitting by my feet.

“This is where I leave you,” he informs me, warmly, as though we had been chatting companionably and not walking quietly and then he adds: “You may pet me on the head if you would like.”

I pet him on the head and he purrs, a short but approving sort of purr.

“Later you will wonder if you actually talked to a cat or not,” the cat says, “because that is how your mind works, so do please remember that we had this conversation.”

“I will,” I tell the cat, hoping that it’s true, and he tells me that not all cats can talk and not all the ones that do have anything to say that’s worth listening to, and that he likes my scarf, and before I can say thank you he turns and walks away.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

don’t

I spun the wheel even though it had a sign that said “don’t.”

I’m sorry.

In my defense, it didn’t say “don’t spin” or even “don’t turn.”

It just said “don’t” which isn’t terribly specific.

And it was there with its vague warning all wheel-shaped with curved spokes looking like it was supposed to be spun, like it wanted to be spinning and like remaining static was all wrong for it and so I gave it a twirl.

I didn’t think anything would happen, really.

I thought the wheel would spin for a bit and that would be that.

But once it started spinning it just kept going.

The letters of the “don’t” sign turned into an illegible blur.

I can’t figure out how to make it stop.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

another world next door

There is another world that is quite like this one but you can’t really see it, even though it’s right next door.

At some points it comes close enough that you could almost see it but the reflections through skys and seas create an optical illusion and everything disappears into the blue.

At night it is no more than a shadow blocking out the stars.

And we look the same to them.

There’s someone just like you only different there.

And someone just like me but not quite, too.

Maybe the other you and that other me wonder themselves about the other world they can’t quite see, obscured by their own clouds and the shadowed stars.

Or maybe they don’t.

Maybe they don’t question missing stars and shades of blue or maybe they accept them as emptiness and mystery.

Maybe they’re content spinning alongside the unknown.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.