The Animal Farm

I have always been a mouse. Throughout my childhood my father kept calling me that.  Mice are grey, almost invisible and unimportant. You can crush them under your feet or catch them in a trap in some hidden corner of the house. Ideal daughter that listens and never speaks back. Ideal wife that listens and never speaks back. And when she does you can always threaten her with a raised hand.
Mice are grey, almost invisible and unimportant....

But I always wanted to be a cat. And I became one the day I stopped the raised hand. I could not stop it many years later. That day when the sky broke and I was lying on a cold floor. Not one hand but two. The childhood mouse stays with you forever. It was there when you asked me out for a cup of tea and I couldn't find the courage to say yes. It was there when thousand of words got stuck in my mouth and never found their way to you. They are not finding it now either. 

My mother wanted me to be a cat. Cats are independent, they have their own opinions, they play with you when they want to but will scratch when you irritate them. She wanted me to be a cat when she told me not to come back but go and follow my dreams. She knew I became one when after reading through my ramblings she spoke of the mental distance between my life and theirs. Mother, I've been a cat for quite some time now. I wish you could see that.

Butterflies are so colourful and gentle. Beautiful souls of those we would like to keep near. I once saw a butterfly on a metro. Reddish-brown butterfly inside white hospital-like train. Did you see the butterfly that day? I couldn't stop looking at it. And I kept wondering where it came from. How would it live in that cold steel metro train? Did it feel lonely there?

I saw a moth today on the parapet. I kept it on my palm to let it fly away. Did that butterfly find its way out?

A dog. Street dog. They all need love, like we all do. They need the touch of the hand, they need a friendly voice that would call their name, they need a sense of belonging and a group of friends around that would wag their tails in happiness. They want to bark at drunk men, they want to bark at thieves and they want to bark at all the raised hands of this world. They need a roti and a sip of water. They are wise and faithful. Who would want a pedigree dog when you can have a street one?

Buffalos and pigs. I see so many of them every day. We used to look at them together with a feeling of contempt. Thousands of them wandering every day through the city in their shining expensive cars. Lunch in a five star. We had our dinners under millions of stars and I began to play the flute while you kept talking about the guitar.

Do you remember the clouds? Those clouds had the shape of a horse. A horse that wanted to jump beyond time, the horse of the future. It reached the past when the wind blew the other way.Do you remember?