A few words about cats

Alexander Dolinin, author of Against Destiny

(print ISBN 9781601641731, Adobe ebook ISBN 9781601643261, Kindle ISBN 9781601643278, Sony ISBN 9781601643285)

I love cats. There is certain charm in them that one can hardly deny. I like dogs as well, unlike so many people who like only either one or the other. For me both are our little brothers, or as some call them “our furry friends”. I would not mind having a dog, except that I would have problems getting up at 6:00 a.m. to give my dog a walkout, or having an evening walkout as an absolute must. With cats it is much easier, just giving him/her food and water and cleaning the litter once in a while, and always enjoying stroking the silky fur. One acquaintance of mine, also a writer, used to say that a cat is an ideal pet for a writer, because a cat is less demanding than a dog and eats up your rejection sheets. And there is one thing about cats that few people would deny - all cats are beautiful, there are practically no ugly ones among them (unlike us humans, or dogs). I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But that is how I feel about cats.

Many people believe that cats, unlike dogs, feel no loyalty and emotional attachment to their masters. I think it’s not just grossly exaggerated, but completely not true - at least all my cats were emotionally attached to me, not less than I to them.

As we know (I mean those of us who still read), cats were considered holy creatures in ancient Egypt. One would immediately assume that it’s probably because of their role in guarding crops from mice and rats. True. But I think there was another reason as well - cats look young throughout their lives. And this for people of traditional cultures might look like a sign of divinity - they imagined their gods perpetually young. The life of a cat was sacred for ancient Egyptians. There was one incident somewhere around the first century A.D., when Egypt was already a province of the Roman Empire. A drunken Roman soldier killed a cat and was beaten to death by a crowd of Egyptians, which was, by Roman law, a terrible crime. But the soldier’s superior was a wise man. While giving his killed subordinate an honourable burial (as was proper for a good and loyal Roman soldier), he told his fellow soldiers that the man paid with his life for insulting the gods of the land, and that others should learn a lesson and avoid sacrilege. No-one was punished for this death.

I have had four cats in my life, including the present one, Sonya, whom I inherited from my ex-girlfriend. One prominent general had different periods in his life marked by different horses: from the very first horse with whom he, still a kid, learned to ride, to the last one whom he rode in his old age and who eventually carried his body to the cemetery. I guess periods of my life would be marked by the cats I live with.