The Cat’s Choice

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*You will forgive me, but I have to tell this story the way it arrived, which means, yes, it’s religious. the non-believers are free to view it as a cute mythological tale. The religious: I don’t presume to add to scripture. This is just a story. – SAH*

In that day in the garden when reality shuddered and the great I Am descended in terrible glory upon his creations, the animals hid. The lion cub and the lamb crouched beneath a bush trying to make themselves small and quiet, while their mothers sought the total darkness of the trees and spied, with wide and frightened eyes as wind rose throwing clots of Earth into the air bruising the delicate flowers and startling the insects.

Above thunder like a ripping of gigantic cloth sounded, deafening, and the sky that had always been blue turned raging violet and angry red.

Even then, in those moments, the lioness and the ewe knew something had changed. The ewe felt a dread of her old friend, though she could not say why, and the lioness found herself thinking that this, the companion of her untroubled days smelled like food. They looked at their babies a few feet off and worried. Then forgot it as the thunder sounded again, and a sound as if of footfalls, and the voice that spoke louder than all creation and through all creation asked “Adam, where are you?”

Then came the truly terrible moment, as the man and the woman appeared, from behind bushes that never sufficiently covered them, and with trembling voices — they were, really — little more than children, admitted they’d done what they weren’t supposed to. They’d eaten the one fruit they’d been told to abstain from.

When the judgement fell, swift and terrible that the humans were cast out and all creation fallen with them, silence fell, and then a voice asked from the trees, “But Lord, we did obey.”

From behind bushes and trees, crouching fauns and trembling lions nodded.

For a moment it all hung in the balance, the garden, reality, all of it, holding their breath. Neither man nor woman spoke, still caught in the fear.

Then the voice came again, trembling through every fiber of existence, “Very well. Those who so choose can remain in the garden and wait till the fullness of time when all is restored. Though other, fallen versions of yourselves shall meet the humans in the world, and greet them with bared fang and sharp claw, with fearful flight or open hatred.”

Behind their bushes ewe and lioness crouched, and a fawn went so far as to browse a mouthful of grass.

But then came a voice they all knew. Not the Great I Am’s Voice, nor even the Human’s, but the voice of a big shaggy brute whom the human called Dog and the woman called Shedding Menace. He was a creature who spoke little, even to the man to whom he responded with little grunts and sharp barks. But now he spoke, “Lord, if they are going to meet fang and claw, I beg of you, who made me obedience incarnate, that I be allowed to go with him.” He turned his trusting eyes to the man. “I’ll follow at his heel. Since he has neither claws nor fur, I’ll protect him with my claw and fang, and sleep beside him on cold nights.”

The Lord looked at the brute, loyal and simple, and said, “But you who are the most obedient shouldn’t be punished for his disobedience.”

“It is no punishment to go with him,” the dog said. “He is what he is, and if he disobeyed, yet he is the one I will obey. It would be punishment indeed, Lord, to be parted from him. I beg you not to visit it on me.”

In the face of such great devotion, written in the face of the beast, the Lord could but relent. “Very well, Dog. You go with man, you guard his steps, you warm his nights, you be with him when all is against him. This mercy I grant him from you and all your get, until the end of time.”

Then the Great I Am’s finger pointed and man and woman and dog started towards the exit of the garden, the dread threshold that would henceforth be closed to them forever more. The rest of creation came from their hiding spots to watch, shocked that those made so high, the image of himself, could fall so low.

But at the portal a creature waited, small and soft, little larger than the rodents. It was a creature of shadow and movement and had, they all thought, always more resembled the serpent itself than the mammals among which it lived.

Its voice sounded forth high and melodic, “I too, my Lord, would go with them.”

There was an hesitation while the garden paused. “You, Cat?” Himself asked. “But you, unlike Dog are not made to be obedient. You are beautiful and soft, and loyal always only to yourself, forever seeking the spot by the fire, the morsel of food, the lap when it’s available.”

“That is just it, Lord. I don’t obey any authority, and they fell through not obeying. I feel we belong together.”

“And yet, what good will you be to them? The dog can guard their flocks and defend their young. What can someone as small as you do?”

“I will keep watch so no serpents approach them. I should have killed that one Lord. I always felt your order not to kill in the garden was a grave mistake.” It spoke patronizingly, looking up, and the rest of the garden trembled of the fury to come. But only amusement came from himself. The cat unsheathed its sharp claws and licked superciliously at its paw. “And I will eat the vermin that will come to eat that which they bring forth with the sweat of their brows.” It paused. “But mostly, I’ll climb into their laps when they’re sad, and they’ll feel that despite their disobedience, they are loved.” It looked up at Himself with glittering green-jewel eyes. “I will be, if you allow it, a mirror of your love. Just like the dog. I will remind humans of what the garden was like.”

There was a long silence. Then a question, “How can a creature that prefers its comforts choose exile?”

“Because,” the cat said. “I don’t know how it happened, but when they gave me milk and stroked my fur, I felt that forever my comfort would be with them. And I should be theirs.” The glittering jewel eyes sparkled. “I think perhaps that is your doing Lord, and a reflection of what you are to your creation. If they go without me, I will be comfortable, but that feeling of belonging and being loved will never come back. I will choose the feeling and the humans.”

“They will hurt you sometimes, you know? Their children and their children children will. They’ll forget the garden and the pact and see only that you are a creature of the shadow and the dark, and fear you and hurt you.”

“They will hurt each other, too, Lord, which doesn’t mean they belong alone.”

A gust of wind like a sigh filled the garden. “Go with them, then. You and dog and your cubs cubs until the end of time shall be bound to humans as you were in here, so they carry with them forever a memory of the garden, and the sense that they can return here.”

The man, the woman and the dog, and the little striped cat winding around the woman’s ankles exited the portal into the world outside.

And the Lord, setting the angel at the gate, with his flaming sword, looked after the four of them walking into a world where thorns would pierce and fire would burn, and sighed, “And with the memory of the garden,” He said, speaking to the angel, but really to Himself. “They shall have a memory of the fall, because neither dog nor cat live as long as humans. And each death will feel like the expulsion from paradise again. And that will be the price for such priceless gift.”

*For Pixel, Randy, Petronius, DT, Zebie, Friday, D’Artagnan, Miranda, Euclid, Greebo, Helena and Havelock, little pieces of the garden and of love eternal given to us for all too short a time. – SAH*

72 thoughts on “The Cat’s Choice”

  7. Amerindian legend, Great Spirit drew a line in the world and put Man on one side, the animals on the other and raised his hand to make it so.  As his hand fell, dog crossed over….  And cat said screw it, I’ll do as I please! L. Mike There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. P. J. O’Rourke

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  10. Tears unlocked as my furry little buddy stares fixedly into the abyss, sluggish heartbeats from the end.

    Good tears, cathartic tears.

    Thank you.

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  11. If I our dear hostess might entertain a suggestion, I would highly recommend this jewel be collected with others of its ilk. Perhaps the collected work could be titled “Cat Tales with More Than a Whisker of Truth to Them.” Admittedly, that is more verbose than is currently fashionable even in subtitles, so perhaps something more succinct could be found, such as “Big Truths in Little Paws.” That sounds too serious for most purposes so I shall leave off.

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    1. better yet, an anthology of that nature would be a natural for the gang over at Raconteur Press!

      and I’m pretty sure that several of them have similar stories.

      The Wife and I have done both feline and canine rescue since before we married, which means that we’ve had to wave goodbye at the gates of the Rainbow Bridge rather more often than most. Giant breeds, a group our Great Pyrs belong to, tend to have short enough lives that at least one of us will be there to wave them on as well.

      Any others we adopt in the future, will, perforce, be elderly, and likely with at least some medical problems, since we both have a bit of experience in that area, just to reduce the chance that one might outlive both of us.

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  14. Yours is better, and this is very good too:

    Lord,
    I keep watch!
    If I am not here
    who will guard their house?
    Hatch over their sheep?
    Be faithful?
    No one but You and I,
    understands
    what faithfulness is.
    They call me, “Good dog! Nice dog!”
    Words…
    I take their pats
    and the old bones they throw me
    and I seem pleased.
    They really believe they make me happy.
    I take kicks too
    when they come my way.
    None of that matters.
    I keep watch!
    Lord,
    do not let me die
    until, for them,
    all danger is driven away.
    Amen

    ~ Carmen Bernos de Gasztold

    More here: https://archive.org/details/prayersfromark00carm/page/6/mode/1up

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    1. Sara the Lab-Aussie was having pancreas trouble. When I tore up my knee, she appointed herself my watchnurse. I had to sleep in the (sort of) Comfy Chair for weeks, and if I didn’t get up soon enough, Sara would rouse $SPOUSE to check on me.

      When I was up and about, she decided that her job was done, and was free to cross over. Kat-the-dog, our 5 year old border collie, took over that job.

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  16. Hi folks, RCPete here!

    TL;DR We made it out safely, the fire is going SE of us, and despite the zone being still in “get the hell out now”, the local fire people (with backup from pros, I think) say there’s a 98% chance we’ll stay OK.

    We bugged out Friday afternoon. I was lead with travel trailer in a tiny convoy, with $SPOUSE driving Subie II (2016 Forester), next door neighbor’s son and another trailer, and said neighbor tail end charlie. (Yet another next door neighbor–we have 4) said they came back and did some fire breaks.)

    We went down to Bonanza (cue the ancient theme song) and got the last spot in an RV park. Second to last was our favorite next door neighbor, set up next door.

    Sunday morning (12:30AM) we got phone calls from the Emergency Comm people telling us to get out. We told an OSP trooper we were going, but add’l phone numbers and an EmComm people feeling that redundency == safety.

    The fire got close. Apparently, though a very local rancher got people and heavy metal together and did fire breaks west of us in a sage brushy meadow. It worked.

    Favorite next door neighbor came home yesterday, we did this morning. Achy, tired, and need to unpack the essentials, but we’re OK.

    Thanks for the prayers (if I could make it go like “Thanks for the boats”….)

    Slowly de-frazzling, RCPete. (Minimal internet access was via phone. I have a hate-hate relationship with Android.)

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    5. Good news indeed!

      Locally someone took all the local fire incidents being posted and noted “looks like arson”. Grass fires, which spreads resources. Nothing close to us, yet.

      In other news. My surgery was cancelled last minute yesterday. Do not have a rescheduled date. Heart team was suppose to call with the new time today, but nothing yet, as of 7 PM PST.

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      1. I haven’t had surgery rescheduled, but a couple of appointments got clobbered when the surgeon had an emergency callout. The last one happened about 5 minutes before I walked into the office. The receptionist was talking to my wife at the time.

        Murphy always has a vote.

        (FWIW, our area is still officially Stage 3, but the winds are blowing from the NW. OTOH, a bit of the northern fire boundary got hit. Mature trees on “you gotta be kidding” terrain.

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          1. Yeah, the dozer operator who was killed was working on the Yahweh Plateau. Emergency and ODOT repeaters are up above there; it’s a royal bastard when snow makes it inaccessible and EM-COM goes down (it did. Took til April), so trying to keep that up means for an incredibly dangerous job.

            Word is there was a rapid weather “event”. With our microclimates, there’s a lot of chance for it to happen.

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  18. Thank you for The Cat’s Choice.

    I’m in the middle of losing my beloved sheep dog to very aggressive lymphoma. Six weeks ago, he was fine; now he is dying. By the time we figured out what was wrong, he was too sick to tolerate chemo, which would only have bought him a year, even if we had caught it early and done every thing right (I really, really hate cancer.).

    He is only 8 years old, and has been the best dog ever since he was a puppy (Somehow, every one of my dogs is the best ever). He marched into our lives and took charge, sheep dog fashion, because it was obvious the we were far too clueless to manage ourselves. (Goodness, it is smoky and dusty in here.) He doesn’t seem to know any thing is wrong, and so far, thank the good Lord, he isn’t in pain. All he knows is that he keeps getting taken to the vet to have blood drawn, and he has to take nasty pills every morning. But the blood cancer is attacking his bone marrow and kidneys, and the sad day when he cannot be his cheerful, energetic self is coming soon. I’ll hold him in my arms while the vet does what must be done, it will be really hard.

    Anyhow, thanks again for the story. I found it comforting on a day when I needed it. May the Lord bless you and keep you and yours.

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    2. All he knows is that he keeps getting taken to the vet to have blood drawn, and he has to take nasty pills every morning.

      Canine lymphoma was how we lost Mr Nemo in 2021. He lasted over two years thanks to the VCA Canine Oncology Clinic in DFW, and he had morning pills and the same opinion. He would nibble them out of everything we tried until we hit on Salmon Cream Cheese from Einstein’s Bagels. However, about every three months, we had to rotate flavors or he would refuse it. Spoiled? Naaaahhhhhh!

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  19. *sniff* Yes, it is horribly dusty in here this afternoon…

    I think the most touching and thought-provoking comment about our companion animals that I ever read was the suggestion that to our dogs and cats … we are perceived as a species akin to Tolkien’s elves. Ancient. Mysterious and capricious, with strange powers, the mysterious ability to heal, something far beyond their ken to understand … but they adore us anyway.

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  20. This is terrible theology, I’m sitting here crying and I want to say thank you and save this somewhere I can read it again. We just said goodbye to our little patchwork Scrap cat last Thursday. Our feisty, ruled the roost bossy lady who at her largest, needs to lose weight size was only 9 pounds. A brown tabby whose white patches were mostly stripes, making her look like she was made of scraps, she was always scrapping with the neighbourhood cats who were definitely NOT ALLOWED on her territory.

    My cognitive dissonance cat, with the milk mustache markings that made her look like she was smiling even as airplane ears said the puppy was irritating and going to get smacked.

    Even with the cancer eating at her, she left near daily “presents” for her humans, and once we made the decision the bad days were equaling the good ones, lived for an extra week because she found a new hiding spot we never did locate. She vanished just before it came time for the appointments and stayed gone until there was no way to make the appointment.

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  21. It’s a lovely addition to the vast body of folklore attached to the Bible, like the story of how the robin got his red breast by fanning the fire to keep the baby Jesus warm, or how the dogwood was once a tall and majestic tree, until its wood was used for the Cross and in grief and shame it became short and gnarled, with a cruciform mark in its flowers.

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  27. “I will comfort them and protect their food and bring them trophies of the vermin I slay…but I will also knock things off the table and cough up hairballs and yea, even yack in their shoes from time to time, that they may know they remain under chastisement.”

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  28. Laugh!

    My little Pippi brought me a foot long garter snake this past Saturday. She thought it was the greatest thing, a live rope. I rescued the serpent and put it back in the flower bed, and distracted the cat with a tube of kitty crack.

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    1. This is Tj.

      We apparently had a nest of garter snakes in the backyard. Has not caught another one this season, but still checks out “the spot”. After we took away the first two, we learned to watch him. If he made the dash for the open slider for no reason we learned to cut him off to rescue the baby snakes. While still nope ropes, garter snakes are a productive members of the yard ecology. Eating slugs, snails, ticks, and other small garden pests. So are possums.

      We’ve had other cats bring home garter snakes. But never live ones before.

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  29. My wife asked why I was sniffling.

    I said I’d email her a story.

    She asked “A happy tearjerker, or a sad one?”

    I answered “Yes.”

    Beautiful. Thank you.

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  34. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » SOMETIMES THE INSIDE OF MY HEAD IS A VERY WEIRD PLACE:  The Cat’s Choice.

  37. Ahh, Sarah, you made me cry. I’m hoping my dog stays healthy for another year or two but she is eleven now so the painful farewell is coming.

    I loved the bit with the cat saying it would have killed the serpent and prevent the entire situation.

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    1. Given the lion lies down with the lamb state of Eden here, I wonder if the cat’s comment is another sign of the Fall – he didn’t do it before because in pre-Fall Eden it never occurred to him.

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