Shiki

There was once a cat. She had lived many lives. Transpiring throughout millions of years and millions of places. Many people owned her throughout these lives. She had lived with nobles, carpenters, poultries, kings, and queens. Throughout her many lives, only a few things were constant, she was always born with beautiful black fur, and her name was always Shiki. She could hardly keep up with so many of her lives, one memory meddles with the other, she would sleep on the lap of a single working mother and wake up on a boat in Venice while having memories of a boy with a cut nose. It was tiring, there wasn’t any reason for her to be tired, but something, the weight of it all, or the lack of it, made her unfathomably tired. However, in her next life, she was born a stray, she realized this never happened before, she walked the streets day and night, she felt free. She made sure that no one managed to take her inside. She met another cat, it was a male cat with large white fur and larger whiskers. They fell in love and they mated. The life outside was hard, it was much colder, and there was never enough food. But it gave them more excuse to warm each other and to lick each other. Her beautiful black fur looked much uglier now, and she smelled bad too but the white cat didn’t mind so it didn’t bother her either. The white cat died one day, he was young but it was a peaceful death. Shiki lived for another three days. She realized she never died this young, nor in the streets all alone. However, this time, Shiki did not come back to life.

in loving memories of Keiko Nobumoto.