Onomatopoeia
I love Pussy. Not many people know this, perhaps because I don’t post photos to flaunt it in my blog or upload it into the profile’s image albums. What an unexpected source of mirth and bewilderment in my life, this Pussy is.
When my close friends Claudio and Derek agreed to end their relationship both gave me their cat. She had a name, but I couldn’t think of calling her by it since we were now together. Without further ado, she became my Pussy.
As with all cats, she owns me. Already housebroken, she knows where everything is and what it stands for when she reaches for her bowls of water and food, claws the couches fiercely and runs through the hallway into the foyer to chase her toys.
“Meow!”
She likes to play after I give her catnip. I toss her toy a metre away from me and she runs back with it, to lay it at my feet. My feet have scratch marks from her, but I still refuse to clip her nails often.
Last Wednesday night I had a long conversation with my brilliant new friend Gunter, a hardcore Berliner who lives in Barcelona and works as an Art Director and Commercial Photographer for an advertising agency. His day had been stressful, and I could feel the heat from his anger through my headphones. We both decided to use an Internet phone service after we looked at our cellular phone bills. He was not using foul language for a change, and the aspersions were also witty, something I have always admired of him.
When we met he was just another photographer snapping shots at a runway show for a designer friend’s collection in Madrid. During one segment of it, he turned to me suddenly and whispered: “That model has a pack of cigarettes under her arm!” enunciated boldly with his accent, so I looked up to see a price tag the stylist had not removed. After nearly collapsing on the carpet with irrepressible laughter, I shook his hand and asked if we could go out for a drink to exchange more observations on the show. He gave a “Ja!” that thrilled me. I went back to New York, and he returned to Barcelona, but we formed a great bond with every phone call thereafter.
“Miau!”
I was multi-tasking, making storyboards for my friend Mario’s photoshoot in the morning and also on the phone with Gunter. As he ranted about an unprofessional actor on the set of the commercial he was working on, the cat jumped on my desk and sat in front of my monitor. Because I spend so much time in front of the computer every day, a male model friend advised sitting on a Swiss ball for some hours. I got up and dashed to the kitchen to refill her water bowl and sat down again.
My friend Gunter and I did our hefty amount of complaining about egos but we also acknowledged each other’s alpha dog characters in business and also in social situations. Mutual respect kept it all from becoming a brawl, choosing to experience and learn from what we both had to offer from our day.
Everyone would love to find their talent and cherish what they do for a living. On the way there, people seem to become sick with greed, envy, pride and many undesirable qualities. Those trying to take their place constantly accost the individuals who succeed in their fields. The result is a mass of tired and angry beings with self-defence as their philosophy. During projects, most professionals seem to jockey for attention and kudos, usually at the wrong time.
“Miaou!”
Pussy wants and pussy gets. I’m spoiling her, eh? I keep a metal comb in my bureau to both pet her and take off her excess hair, to prevent her from spitting out fur balls so often. She purrs and goes to her little bed with a grin.
I continue a conversation both blunt and esoteric that turns to possible solutions: What would Gunter and I do outside the Arts? There are days when I wish I could go and recycle plastics, to turn them into bricks and help the poor build their homes. I think finding people in need and not just pampered queens of platitudes can balance my day. Gunter agrees with this. Why are there no fines for people who waste others’ time?
The conversation ended and I looked at my Pussy. Exhausted and feeling slightly bitter after the exchange of dissertations on divas, I went to the couch and she leaped gracefully on it, her little paws stepping on my arms and solar plexus, purring on her way to my ribcage. She knelt in the middle of my sternum and looked at me.
“Miauw!”
She came closer to my face and pressed her cold little nose on my lips. I think she just kissed me.
© Text: Orlando Barahona
© Image: !fatima/Flickr
This work by Orlando Barahona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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