We all write our own little stories about the cats.
“Hips and Prescott are married,” for instance. Or, “Pepita has a Nobel Peace Prize.” Or, “before Tabby’s Place, Baby worked as an ice cream man.”
You do it. I do it. We would hardly be human if we didn’t do it.
But the cats’ true stories are always even better.
(Of course, Hips and Prescott actually are married, but that goes without saying.)
We can’t help ourselves. When you love someone as much as we love our cats, you are prone to poetry. Our hearts are so overfull, fairy tales and allegories fall out of our mouths. But while we’re anthropomorphizing and annotating, the cats are reveling in reality.
Who needs tall tales when you stand nine inches from the ground?
Not Hoopla Green, who likes her news black-and-white. Our most feral FeLVie has kept her distance from caricatures and cartoons. We may cast her as Titania, Shakespeare’s queen of the fairies, or Virginia Woolf in a solarium of her own. Hoopla will thank us politely, then decline the honors.
The only compliment she wants to hear is, “you’re the real Hoopla Green.”
She is a tuxedo cat infected with feline leukemia virus (FeLV). She is in full control of her own electricity. She is self-respect walking on powdered-sugar paws. She is an introvert without excuse.
She is tearing up the script that casts FeLV+ cats as doomed damsels. She is happy, by her own dignified definition.
Hoopla reads the storybook of the sun, so she knows its rising and its setting. She writes herself into the solarium so as not to miss a single exclamation point. Hoopla may never let us peek over her shoulder at her diary, but the entries are rich and full. No embellishments are necessary.
But sometimes, even Hoopla gets surprised by what plays out on the page.
While we were dreaming up our own dramatic arc, Hoopla was living the simplest story of all. She found a friend. And, with absolutely zero percent razzle dazzle, two black-and-white cats agreed that nobody needs to wait ’til the ending to be happy.
Of course, being humans, we all rushed in with our crayons and magic markers. Hoopla and Mr. Man were in love! They were going to hyphenate their last names to become Mr. and Mrs. Green-Man! He would convince her to let people pet her, and she would teach him to sing!
Hoopla and Mr. Man just looked at us. That all sounded very fine, but wasn’t this moment enough?
Perhaps they knew what we did not, yet: Mr. Man’s time with us was short. Empathetic but unsentimental, Hoopla decided to make his last chapter the best.
Throughout Tabby’s Place, non-fiction is our favorite species’ favorite genre. Just ask Emperatriz, the Empress. She came here from Puerto Rico, FIV+ and timid. We made much of her title, but she asked for no homage. We tried to tuck myths and legends between her cinnamon stripes, but she showed us her cayenne.
Emperatriz did not want to be touched, much less “touched-up” for a pretty portrait.
She wanted to sleep peacefully, without fear. She wanted to find the highest point in Suite D and observe all the wonders of her world at once. She wanted a break from holding her guard up, because it is heavy. She was tired of being valiant and vigilant. She just wanted to enjoy her breakfast, like a cat: an ordinary, honorable, exquisite cat, no explanation or “extras” required.
This being Tabby’s Place, Emperatriz would get everything she wanted.
She is still processing this.
When your history is haggard, “ordinary life” feels like an outrageous request. The Empress’s eyes widen at the sight of breakfast. There is peace on every page, but she keeps flipping to the end to make sure there’s no plot twist. She hisses and swats, just to see what will happen. Nothing she can do will turn this tale from romantic comedy to tragedy.
Tabby’s Place people do not retract their love. Ever.
In this story, Emperatriz gets more than she ever wanted. We must always be careful comparing cats to humans, since this is generally an insult to cats. But both species are prone to wanting too little. We are scared to lose what we have if we dream of more. We are bashful about bread, so we dare not ask for popcorn.
But popcorn finds us. Or Poppa Lay, as the case may be.
Right in the midst of Emperatriz’s movie, along came a kindred spirit. Nobody ever sees a soulmate coming, not even if they are walking straight in your direction on sturdy legs.
But there he was, her gentle defender, with a licorice stripe down his nose and no need to steal from her plate. Generous and gallant, Poppa Lay presented himself to Emperatriz. Hi. I’m here. I can’t help but notice that you are also here. Want to be here together?
It’s all so uncomplicated. Maybe that’s why we humans feel the need to wheel in the whimsy. We know we are witnessing miracles. We forget they are spectacular because they are simple.
A shared meal. A head-bonk. A sunbeam wide enough for two. The extravagance of just getting to be here together.
I have a feeling we will write our own little stories as long as we live. The cats are so big, we can’t help ourselves. But perhaps that’s as it should be. We need the simple truth, and we need to erupt in silly songs. We need to take things at face value, and we need to give a narrative to this unfinished story.
We need to “sing both.”
Just take it from the sorry state of our Valentine’s Day “Hissing Booth.” Thanks to renovations by Olive, it now reads like some kind of oracle. If you are going to “sing both” to someone, don’t just do it “4 u.” Do it “5 u.”
Maybe Prescott and Hips can explain what that means. They are married, after all. And that’s a true story.
And in case that wasn’t enough Hoopla + Mr. Man for you…
