Do you ever contemplate the cosmic fortune cookie?
Do you ever squint between the folds of the galaxy and try to read the words?
Do you ever leap around like a photon simply because you are here at the same time as marmalade kittens and moonbeams and coffee?
If you fall into the third class of astronomers, you have chosen the better part.
You are in league with Fortune Cookie, who is unconcerned with luck. You are spinning the big wheels, because you are glad to be small.
When you are Fortune Cookie, you crumble into your constituent atoms, butter and sugar and gratitude, at the drop of a hat.
When you are Fortune Cookie, your entire life is a holiday in observation of existence.
It is no wonder that your citrusy hairs all stand on end. You are a tangerine tumbleweed. You are a testament to the fact that existence is excellent. You exist, therefore you exult. You exist, which is the unlikeliest adventure of all.
Life is not unlikely simply because you were diagnosed with feline leukemia virus (FeLV) when you were smaller than the average dumpling. Those four letters do their part to erase existence, but no alphabet is so powerful.
Your existence is not unlikely simply because you were the chosen meal of an upper respiratory virus the size of a dinosaur. It gooped your eyes, and it glumped your lungs, and it made you feel small. But when you are Fortune Cookie, you are small enough to survive the sludge.
You are small enough to fit inside a muffin cup, which is the perfect place to give thanks for daily bread.
Your existence is not unlikely because you were born into a “hopeless situation.” You were a kitten loosed upon the landscape before your legs had courage. You may have bumbled and even wept, but you were more wonder-struck than worried.
You were here.
You were here, and you were not alone. You had herds of humans, fully “yours” from the hour of your arrival. You also had Simona, your own personal “bonus kitten.” You grabbed this FIV+ gardenia on the way out of your former shelter.
And you had yourself, which is the hardest thing for any living creature to keep.
You were here, passed from loving hand to loving hand, kissed between those neon Doritos masquerading as ears. You were here, fostered by angels in sweatshirts, and commanded to thrive by royalty in stethoscopes. You were here, a bonus kitten, far from “kitten season,” as popularly defined.
You were here, proof that our gnarled and warring earth can’t help but erupt in mercy.
When you are Fortune Cookie, it all could have been otherwise. There is no dictum that ginger dumplings must exist at all. A kitten is pure grace. On the rough denim jacket of an ordinary day, a kitten is embroidery and fringe.
While the rest of us squint for meaning, Fortune Cookie cracks the safe.
He exists.
It could have been otherwise.
He is here, capable of curling up like elbow macaroni or stretching out like the world’s first prayer.
He is here, with flaked shrimps, and jangly toy balls, and a smitten micro-civilization of people who praise his every breath.
We happen to be here, too.
Tell me. Do you ever walk past a mirror and glimpse a “bonus kitten?”
Do you ever crane your neck to see the evening star, and realize you have been granted many mornings?
Do you ever hug another living creature, simply because we are here at the same time as each other?
It could have been otherwise. But here we are.
PS: Who has been adopted? Both Simona and Fortune Cookie (separately), that’s who. Who is surprised? Neither you nor me, that’s who.