“A Note on Cats”

  by Piper Reilly, Soul Rehabilitation Specialist

  If you’re reading this, you’re probably in rehabilitation.

  Welcome. It sucks. I know.

  You’re probably sitting at a desk that appeared out of nowhere, in a room that doesn’t obey the laws of physics, supervised by a man with a mustache that has more emotional range than most people you knew in life. You’re probably processing files and wondering what you did to deserve an eternity of cosmic paperwork. You’re probably convinced this is all a mistake and that someone in administration will realize you don’t actually belong here.

  You do. Sorry. I thought the same thing.

  But here’s something they don’t tell you at first, and I think they should, which is why I’m writing it down and leaving copies on every desk I can find:

  The cats are real.

  Yes, really. The ones you’ve been seeing out of the corner of your eye. The ones knocking pens off the edge of your workspace. The one that appeared on your desk five minutes into your first shift, stared at you like you were the most disappointing thing it had ever witnessed, and then vanished.

  Those cats.

  They’re real, they’re in charge, and no, I’m not crazy. (Well. Not about this, anyway.)

  * * *

  They’ll seem silly at first. Cosmic beings in bowties? An afterlife administered by creatures who think pushing objects off flat surfaces is a valid form of communication? A points system designed by entities who have never once, in the entire history of existence, come when called?

  It sounds ridiculous. You’ll probably laugh.

  Good. Laugh.

  You need to learn to laugh at yourself. At your certainty. At your need to put everything—everyone—in neat little boxes. At the rigidity that brought you here in the first place.

  I know. I was the most rigid person in 847 lifetimes of rigid people, and every single one of them was me. Trust me when I tell you that laughing at the cats in bowties is the first step toward laughing at the version of yourself who thought they had all the answers.

  But after you laugh? Look again. Really look.

  Because those silly cats in their silly bowties are something else entirely. Something so vast and ancient and true that your brain needed the bowties just to cope. The accessories aren’t a joke. They’re a kindness. A translation layer between what the cats are and what you’re ready to see.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  When you’re ready—and you will be, eventually—the bowties come off. And what’s underneath will take your breath away.

  Or it won’t. Because you won’t have breath. Because you’re dead.

  (Afterlife humor. You’ll develop it. Give it time.)

  * * *

  Here’s the thing I wish someone had told me on my first day:

  Wisdom often comes disguised as things we might initially dismiss.

  Trans people. Neurodivergent kids. Nonbinary coworkers. Autistic classmates. People who don’t look or love or think or be the way we expect them to. Cosmic cats in bowties.

  The test was never whether we understood them immediately. Nobody does. Understanding takes time, and humility, and the willingness to admit that your categories might be wrong.

  The test is whether we can move.

  From dismissal to curiosity. From curiosity to humor. From humor to acceptance. From acceptance to reverence.

  From fear to love.

  That’s it. That’s the whole lesson. Everything else—the points, the files, the reincarnation menus, the break room, Tom’s mustache—is just scaffolding. The lesson underneath all of it is four words long:

  Choose love over fear.

  I couldn’t. Not for lifetimes. Not for 847 of them. I chose fear every single time, in every single body, in every single century. I chose the box over the person standing in front of me. I chose being right over being kind. I chose the comfort of my categories over the people who didn’t fit them.

  And the cats waited.

  * * *

  That’s the thing about cats. They’re patient.

  They’ll wait for you. They’ll keep showing up—on your desk, in your peripheral vision, in the quiet moments when you’re starting to crack. They’ll knock things off your desk, and you’ll think they’re being annoying, but what they’re actually saying is: things don’t have to stay where you put them. The world doesn’t have to be arranged the way you insist it should be. Sometimes the most important thing is the mess.

  They’ll sit on your papers and you’ll think they’re being difficult, but what they’re actually saying is: slow down. This isn’t as urgent as you think. The file can wait. Your certainty can wait. Sit with me for a minute and practice not controlling everything.

  They’ll stare at you with those knowing, ancient, impossibly yellow eyes, and you’ll think they’re judging you.

  They are.

  But not the way you think. They’re not measuring you against some standard you’ll never reach. They’re looking at what you could be. What you will be, if you let yourself. They see the version of you that chose love, even though that version hasn’t arrived yet.

  They’re patient enough to wait for it.

  * * *

  I hope you get it faster than I did.

  I hope you look at the cats and laugh, and then look again and cry, and then look a third time and understand.

  I hope you read the files and see yourself in them sooner than I did. I hope the recognition stings, and then heals, and then teaches.

  I hope that when you finally sit across from the person you hurt—if you’re lucky enough to get that chance—you say the right thing. Or the wrong thing. Or nothing at all. And I hope you can live with whatever they say back, even if it’s not what you want to hear.

  Especially if it’s not what you want to hear.

  But if you don’t get it right away? If you fail the lesson the first time, or the tenth time, or the hundredth time?

  The cats will wait.

  They always do.

  P.S. — Pet them when you get the chance. I wish I had done that more.

  THE END