A Cordial Dialectic

As I stumble along, fearful that each still will be my last, my mind sees only an endless plain of naught but pitch darkness. My body hesitates, as though sensing such a step, and I drive myself forward, compelled by some unknown emotion. Left, right, left, right, each pad finding solid ground, left, right; suddenly, all gives way to nothingness!

Fur bristling and claws flailing desperately, I awaken with a certain poise found only when stepping on a stovetop or a hot tin roof. Equilibrium shifts with a start and I am tipped with a flump onto the floor. I look up to see a human fervently rubbing the two red lines I left on the thigh after gracing it with my slender nails. I regain my composure and close my eyes, wondering suddenly what it would be like to be bereft of vision, and challenging myself to try. Closing my eyes and stepping forward slowly and slowly again, I visualize the room with each forward motion. A familiar smell tantalizes my sensitive nose: dinner. Eyes closed in my act of pure desire, I bound forth into the table leg in front of me. Wood meets head; I fall back into a box, which then capsizes around me.

"A pox upon the entire human race and their useless creations!" I meow feebly, as the footsteps of one come nearer. The noise stops, and the box opens to reveal them stooped to free me. I walk to the open screen with humiliation great enough to abandon the idea of food and make my way to the fence from which I view the world, guessing what's what by the stabs of pain in my paws. I knew I had reached my destination by a matter of pure instinct and deduction (deducing from the newer pain in my head that I had slammed into the post). Sightless and determined, I take a step back and leap gracefully and with great courage through the air, only to slam once more into the post.

It is now that I decide I could never handle being blind. The light of the outside world turns everything a glaring white. I trip over myself in a daze and hit my head yet again on the post.

Finally perched upon my post, I look down to see I've been observed the whole time by my now snickering neighbor, the Shiba dog. Wearing a face of arrogant dignity, I groom one of my front paws, pausing for just a moment to speak to this lowly creature.

“What, may I ask, is so funny?” I ask.

“That one of such feline grace, as you always call it, can make such an utter fool of herself,” replies the dog.

“I was simply experimenting,” I say, hiding my anger.

“Experimenting? Testing the consistency of solid matter with your skull?”

“No, you unintelligent waste of life; I was acting off of a dream,” I foolishly start to explain.

“What a strange dream—ha ha—running into such things—ha ha!” he rudely interrupts.

“Shut up, mangy mutt! I was seeing if I could live with being blind, to trust only to my other senses and experience of the world to boldly navigate forth."

“Oh, I see. How did that turn out?” he says smugly.”

"Not well. I do believe that I would have to surrender to a life of lethargy or death if I were to be blinded," I state, trailing off near the end. I begin to ponder on death. I notice the Shiba dog seeming more serious, and as though reading my mind, he asks, "What do you suppose happens when you die?"

"Well, I think that you simply transcend life and move on to a higher purpose, to a sort of heavenly realm; a world better than this one," I say after a moment of thought. "What about yourself?"

"I think that life simply ends, and there is nothing more," the Shiba states with the sort of pride found when most Atheists explain their beliefs.

“A belief is a belief, I suppose. Why, may I ask, do you still live?” I inwardly grin at the two-sided behavior of this question that seems to escape the dog, who is now overtaken with thought. Though on a scale higher than most dogs, this Shiba still needs to collect all thought to produce an intelligent result equaling even my lowest words.

“I exist to eat,” he concludes.

“What!?” I exclaim, amazed at such an answer. He chuckles.

“I do! I feel the need to eat, so I eat. This is truth, this is the only truth, where not having food brings pain, and having food does not, and so it can be argued that I am living to escape pain; and yet that is truly impossible. Eating is so fun, anyway, and it's something that's always available to me," he concludes.

“I don’t quite understand the connections, to be honest,” I say, laughing to myself. “I think you are picking up on human behavior.” This statement shocks the Shiba for a second, but this shock fades to a look of ponderous understanding.

“Yes, I do suppose that’s true. Humans are rather disappointing, however. I try to entertain them, but they simply stay inside and stare at things. I don’t do that!”

“No, but you have other quirks that make up for that.”

“Ha ha! You’re one to talk,” he replies with mock dignity.

“I am nothing like the humans, nor do I have any negative qualities about me. A cat is the manifestation of perfection. Something you could never understand,” I state with pride.

“You are correct, I am afraid, in the fact that I could never understand. I know that my kind is not perfect, nor are you. Nothing truly is. Everything is flawed in one way or another.” At this, I hop down onto the grass in which the Shiba sits calmly, giving him a better look at my perfect self.

“What about me is imperfect? I have seen myself many times in the reflective glasses the humans have posted all around their dwellings, and I feel I am a flawless being!”

“The thing about perfection is that it is entirely based upon perception,” the Shiba explains.

“You mean there is not a single perfect archetypical cat?” I ask with genuine curiosity.

"No, what you think is perfect is different from what I think is perfect, as with the next cat and the next dog, just as with the idea of truth, or good and evil. Isn't all of life only perception?" he says, with a modesty I can not comprehend. "Just as you were blind for a minute, you lost sight of the world. In a sense you still are." Now I am completely agape, amazed at this enlightenment, and I make no effort to hide it. I look around me and the world seems brighter. I bow my head to the Shiba, close my eyes, and trot off to my master’s dwelling, my step light and unburdened.

The Shiba watches the cat go and shakes his head, grinning, tongue lolling. "The poor thing, so lost in herself, so lost that she has trotted into the wrong house."