Cattepy The Caterpillar Cat

Cattepy

                I am a caterpillar. I am small. I am squirmy. I crawl like a worm on leaves, eating holes as I go.  I need to eat a lot, for I need to grow big. I need to grow big to become a butterfly one day. I am tiny. I have a lot of enemies. I need to hide.  Birds are terrifying. Spiders are scary. They like to eat me.

                I am squirmy. I am a pretty light green color. Here, I crawl up to the stalk of a flower. I climb up with my squirmy body. I find new leaves.  I crawl towards them. I want to eat. I want t o become a butterfly someday. I need to eat the green. I need to avoid the spiders. I need to avoid birds. I want to become an adult as soon as possible.

                I could fly. I could drink nectar. I could avoid spiders. I need to eat leaves now. Everything green is eatable. Look, a drop of dew. It reflects a beautiful green morning. Over there, a lake reflects early morning blue sky. Perfect day for eating leaves of this flower. The air surges through my instincts and I find power to crawl to the top of the flower. It is a dusty yellow up here.

                My body gets covered with it. Rich colors cover the landscape of my kingdom. The wind is restful today. There is only a slight sway on the flower top. The world is vast. I want to eat. I need to become a butterfly.

                Oh, but….what’s that? Over there coming towards me. It blocks out the sun and towers over 4x the height of the flower. Has it come to eat me? I try to crawl and hide myself in the rosy petals of the flower, but something ginormous squeezes me unbearable around the middle. I squirm for my life. I do not want to be eaten. I want to become a butterfly. Why is it I am the bottom of the food chain? This creature is giving me my death I do not want. Suddenly it is dark. The creature had created a cage of darkness around me. Extreme movements swing me up and down as the creature walks. It is stifling. I squirm. All I feel is smooth, warm flesh beneath me. I cannot escape. The creature falls still. Daylight pours into my eyes as a large body part with 5 sprouting legs(?) lifts off the top of the darkness. The creature is sitting. A giant face looms over me. All teeth bared. I cringe. The large body part with five legs pours a sticky dark purple liquid on me from a large transparent thing. The liquid smells strong, and gets in my mouth. Large tremors commence as the creature opens its mouth. I think they were supposed to be language, but there is no way I could understand it. Something….changes.

                I was having a bad day, as usual. Getting yelled at has become my specialty lately. I simply can’t get a spell right. Somehow it always ends up in a catastrophic “Boom!” in which my employer feels the need to go “Boom!” too. So here I am, in the place I always spent most of my childhoods.

                When I was a boy, I would often go out to the lake in the woods, surrounded by all the magnificent smells of pine and greenery. This place seemed magic to me, not the magic of magicians and sorcerers with tricks up their sleeves, but something more real and less prideful. I always felt something there I never felt anywhere else, or at least, I used to. Nowadays everything feels the same color; gray. I had thought that maybe I could find some more exuberant colors if I stayed here long enough. So I did.

                I was laying down with my hands beneath my head, listening to the breezy laps of water, and the calm noises of insects simply living their simple lives. The gentle wind caressed the grass as it rustled through my hair and ears. The creamy puffs of clouds softened the sunlight into a patient ray of joy. Even with my eyes closed I could feel the scene filling me up with something I hadn’t known for a long time. But…., I opened my eyes, this could not solve my problems. I sighed. How I wishes I could become older and get retired. Maybe then I could actually live my life happily, with a wife and children. And, perhaps one day, grandchildren. But would that actually happen? I rolled over, and then something caught my eye. A something on a rosy flower. To be precise…a caterpillar. Well that was different. I picked it up, and held it above my face. It was a green wormy thing with giant looking eyes I knew was an illusion. I didn’t know what kind it was, though it looked familiar.

 Familiar…..which unpleasantly reminded me that I needed one. A familiar, I mean. My employer had recently complained that I had to look more professional and less ruggy to get more customers. “They expect a well-dressed, tuxedoed man with all mannerism polite and clever.” He had said. “Sharp in all senses, respectful and critical in a cheerful upbringing sense. Physical appearance also does much to satisfy a crowd, Mr. Bursgy. Perhaps if you had an animal slave, er, I mean familiar, then you would have higher ratings. I can’t wait forever for you to buck up!”

                Here went nothing. “Roono kimi mi ni amas todoke bin.” My spell casting language had never been fantastic, but it seemed to be working. The caterpillar had grown hair all over its body, not to mention being at least 3 times bigger. I could feel the magical stress pulling at the creature and at every climax of tension, “pop!” a leg or a tail appeared. The creature’s eyes that I could now see as slitted were bulging out their sockets. I did not envy the poor thing. Fur was growing at an amazing pace, and the creature was now the size of what it was to become. I could see the snout forming subtly, and as I watched I suddenly became a bit sick. It was like watching something that took years to grow and form do it all in a split second. It was…unnatural.

 The creature was curled up in a painful ball on the grass, and I realized the transformation was complete. There was no more magical tension pulling at the animal anymore. What was now at my feet struggling to get up was a golden-colored cat with black tipped ears, tail, and feet. Its stuttering steps were quite like a newborn colt, extremely clumsy. I watched the cat for a while, letting it get used to its new body. No doubt its mind had changed to; it must be excruciating to have sudden complexity thrown onto a simple creature. But “creature” was now insufficient for the cat. I should decide on a name….I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. Something that brought together a caterpillar and a cat… “Oh, I know!” I burst out. “I shall name you Cattepy!”

After the “human being” took me to his house, I looked around and found a dismal little workshop covered in dust. It was full of little bottles and strange devices cluttered about the shelves and floor. The shelves covered the walls so much you couldn’t see the color of the wall behind them. There was a large desk in the middle of the room covered in scattered paper with a random human skull in the right corner that clattered its teeth when we walked in. Everything was utterly gray and dark. And ridiculous. The human lowered me down onto the ground and I set off exploring. I ran into the next room in the left corner and found myself in a dusty bedroom with nothing but a giant be and a small night stand. The only objects on the nightstand was a tiny orange polka-dotted blue lamp, a black alarm clock, reading glasses, and a big book that smelled of mildew. In the right wall another door led to the bathroom, which I naturally avoided. I went out to the client room once again and noticed another door on the right wall, directly across from the one I had entered. I dashed over to the door, and it obligingly swung open like all the others.

                 In it was the kitchen. It was full of good smells and shiny surfaces. The human was standing near a counter, wrestling with a can of tuna. It seemed as though he was a pretty clumsy being, that human. After a while of painful failure, he grabbed a device the humans called a “can opener” and swung it around with dreadful speed. I hung around since it smelled good. He lowered the can to the floor, and I cautiously put my nose to it. I had never tried meat before. It seemed alright, though, so I licked some up into my mouth. It was good. While I ate, the human rubbed me behind the ears. It was so strange. Only thirty minutes before I had been changed into another animal entirely and yet I did not feel shocked at all, just curious. Was this some part of the magic that helped me fit so well into this body? Well…if so, lucky me. The knowledge I could hold had suddenly burst out, and it was altogether overwhelming, but at the same time refreshing. I did not have to worry about being the digestive properties of birds anymore. Or spiders.

                Suddenly a large, vibrant sound rang out through the dusty workshop, and the human stood up and moved towards the door. He opened it cautiously and tried to peek out for a split second before the door banged open to reveal a rather pot-bellied man. This man was wearing a suit that seemed quite uncomfortable, along with a top hat that kept slipping down over his eyes. This man had a rather strange color to his face. It was red, and the man was steaming with his lips puckered. It seemed my human was in for it.

I stood looking at Mr. Glutone in surprise. What was is this time? Millions of thoughts ran through my head,-buttoned down shirts, shiny shoes, top hats, no dust, manners, cleanliness, familiar-no I already had that. So now what happened to turn such a violent crimson into his face? My question was answered in one blunt sentence: “Mr. Bursgy, your spell has gone wrong.” Uh-oh, this could be bad. “On none other than Mrs. Shover.” Instinctively I curdled. Mrs. Shover was a fat, wealthy old lady in her 80’s. She had requested a spell to become thinner. I could distinctly remember her scratchy words stinging on my nerves like fingernails on a chalk board. She also got along very well with all the other old ladies whose favorite pastime was gossip. No doubt she had given Mr. Glutone a rat-out.

                “I’ll get my shoes this instant.” I rushed over to my bedroom door and flung my shiny black shoes on. I grabbed my black case, my staff, and, as an afterthought, picked up Cattepy. This was not going to be a field trip.

                When we arrived at Mrs. Shovers “humble” abode from a horse drawn carriage, I was relieved to find no crowds or unfortunate explosion. Perhaps the problem was something I could handle after all. We rang the doorbell 3 times, and each time, silence. I was beginning to worry that Mrs. Shover had kicked the bucket, when I heard a scuffling behind the door. The scuffling followed a “Bang!” as if something heavy had been dropped, a small inaudible curse, and at long last the click of the door.

                As the door creaked open hesitantly, I caught a peek of a watery eye looking out as us, and then the door swung open. I blinked in masked shock. Mrs. Shover was in a dirty, old night gown with wispy unbrushed hair, and (a miracle) no make-up whatsoever. I noticed the mistake of my spell immediately, and also why she hadn’t said anything about it to her gossip partners. Not only had my spell failed to make her thinner, it went the opposite direction and had made her rather the size of a baby elephant. You didn’t even need to mention the chair stuck to her rear end. I noticed, rather, that one of the legs was broken. That must have accounted for the “Bang!” we had heard before she had opened the door.

                “I hope you can explain this, Mr. Bursgy.” She scowled. We set down our things on the ground, and Cattepy sat down by my briefcase. “I apologize, ma’am. I will-,” “Your petty apologies won’t do me any good.” She interrupted. “I can’t even be seen in public like this! To be sure I will have you take accountability for this.” “Yes ma’am.” I added hurriedly. This was not going well. “I believe I have the cure for this situation in my briefcase, if you would be so kind.” I picked up the black piece of luggage and proceeded to open it. That was when Mrs. Shover noticed Cattepy who was delicately licking her paw.

                “AiiiiEEAAEiii!!!!” She promptly screamed and jumped from her chair(it’s amazing how fear can get you out of sticky situations), waving her stick at the creature, elevated by the chair she had been stuck in 3 seconds earlier. “Get that THING out of my house!” She proceeded screaming and banging as we tried to catch Cattepy who had been startled by all the noise and was now running out of control. She leaped from tables, to the ground, to the sofa, to the tables, to the ground, to the sofa, and then to the bookshelf, from the top of which she jumped and landed flat on top of the screaming face of Mrs. Shover. A deadly silence followed. Then Mrs. Shover toppled from the chair and landed flat on the ground, fainted.

                It was an hour later Mrs. Shover called Mr. Gluton after they had left. “Mr. Gluton,” She said. “I wish never to see any of you ever again. Of course, you will solve my ailment that your employee caused, however. I find I will have to report this to the officials unless you ‘pluck the rotten apples from the tree’ so to speak. I will give you one week for you to do so. You must know it would not be good for your business if my connections got involved. Choose.” And she hung up the phone.

It was a few days later my human came home funny. He slammed into the front door before opening it, and stumbled around the whole room until he collapsed into his chair. I jumped up onto his cluttered desk and the putrid smell of alcohol came into my nose. My human had his head down on the table, resting on his arms and was groaning. I pawed at his head and he looked up at me. “Hi Cattepy, how do you do?” He hiccupped. “Who would’ve thought something like that ended like this. How jelloey can life be? Ha, I bet I would even get stuck in it. Oh wait, I’sh alreadee em….” He put his head back down and resumed groaning. After a while of that, he poked his head up again. “You know, I wish time would fast-forward to a time everything is stable, one I don’t have to worry in…Maybe I’m just being ridiculous.” He sighed.  As a caterpillar that had wanted to be a butterfly as soon as possible, I understood. But…., that’s wrong. I pounced my two front paws on his head and stared intensely at him. He looked up at me. “You think I’m being ridiculous, too, don’t you? Yeah, I knew it too.”

                The next morning my human had a hangover. It was only natural. A hangover is just punishment bestowed by God upon uncontrollable drinkers. He spent the first few sunny morning hours in the bathroom, where unappetizing noises were heard seeping out through the cracks in the closed door. I hung around on the bed, dozing all my cares away into the sunlight. That was the way it stayed until the early afternoon where my human came out looking pretty worn out. His disheveled hair was stuck to his sweaty forehead, and his face was considerably pale. He collapsed on the bed next to me and stayed there for five minutes. He then got up and put his shoes on. He grabbed that piece of black luggage he always carried around and came over to me and picked me up. “I’m taking you home,” He whispered.

                It seemed out destination had been the lake I had been transformed in. The sunset glistened as it reflected off the giant mirror of water. My human set me down on the grass and sat down next to me.  He gazed at the view for a moment, then turned to me. “I got fired yesterday. I’m not able to be a magician anymore. Perhaps I can get a job as something else, but in the meantime, it would be cruel to keep you from your true form any longer without a cause. Truthfully, in some ways I’m relieved I got fired. It gives me some easier options. I really enjoyed our time together, though. It was very interesting for both you and me.., and one other person I won’t mention. I will miss you, but that’s the way it is.” He opened his case and pulled out the same vial of purpley stuff that turned me into a cat. I flinched at the sight of it, but I didn’t move. He poured a little bit over my head, then muttered some untranslatable words. In a few seconds I felt the same tension I had felt a few days ago. I changed again.

                After Cattepy had changed back into a caterpillar, I picked her up gently with my fingers and set her on the nearest flower. Then I picked up my black case and walked away.

                A couple of weeks later, I was working on my new job. I had decided to watch and research certain caterpillars. They were very interesting little creatures, all different colors and body shapes. So far the work was going very well, and, best of all, I was enjoying it. I spent most of the time outside watching them crawl everywhere. It was very peaceful work.

                One day I went to a lake. I was the very same lake I had spent my childhoods as a boy, and, that Cattepy had been born in. I started searching among the stems of flowers for some caterpillars when something from the corner of my eye fluttered. I looked over and found an Eastern tiger Swallowtail butterfly flailing about around me. It was a pretty yellow color with black markings. I held out my finger, and the delicate creature lofted on it. That was when I remembered. Cattepy had been a swallowtail also. The butterfly slowly moved her wings back and forth. Then, as a sudden gust of wind blew toward us, she rose. She flapped her wings, and, as I watched, soared into the sky.

*Story I wrote for Creative Writing Class.