Catamorphosis E-Book

Lloyd Baron

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 188

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

A modern "Metamorphosis" that speaks to the themes of our time - isolation, identity, and desperation for connection. An entertaining novella that asks many philosophical questions, Catamorphosis introduces Julia Galles. An introvert in an extrovert's world, Julia is stuck in a rut - until the day she wakes up as a cat. Can a feline perspective help her to reconnect with humanity? The story explores questions of companionship, authenticity, and purpose with a lightness of touch and an off-beat charm. A book that readers will really connect to.

Leseprobe

To all cats who miscalculated their jump, fell down and then played it off as if nothing happened.

Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?

Charles Baudelaire

On the morning of the 17th, after a particularly sleepful night, Julie Galles woke up to find herself transformed into a cat. Still half asleep, she watched a set of ginger and white paws stretch out on the beige duvet cover and felt every inch of her body yearning for a good scratch. She yawned and shook her head, a set of gray whiskers flickering in the corners of her eyes. Overcome by a sudden tedious thought, she took a gander around the room, followed by a relieved exhale on the note that nothing else had changed. Her little studio apartment was the same she had left it the night before.

The sun was up. It was glistening through the dirty glass of Julie’s apartment window and formed bright lines on her bed. The smell of red wine from the almost finished glass on her bedside table was mixing with the crisp morning air sliding through the cracks in the old wood frames. Turning herself to align with a sunny spot, the warmth bewitching her mind to an instinctive shuteye, Julie fell back asleep. Whether human or cat, there was no conceivable rush to get up.

Not that anyone could begin to judge her for taking a moment to relax in her studio on the sixth floor of the crooked apartment building number 54 on Rue des Martyrs. Tiny, yet well-furnished, the studio had a touch of what some would call a bohemian charm. Decidedly far removed from the type of bohemians that actually had money, Julie lived a humble life; it marked itself by a thrifty way of presentation, accentuated in a modern admiration for woven things and antique stuff. It had been Julie’s luck that her landlady, Mme Dufront, had left the studio furnished with an assortment of cabinets, a decorated bed frame, and one perfectly pink chaise longue that may as well have belonged in the courts of Versailles. All of that was nestled inside the fittingly dolled up green and turquoise facade of block 54. Myth would have it been the domicile of an illustrious brothel that ran the first two floors in the seventies. The question of whether its proprietor was the very same Mme Dufront was never actually answered.

A sharp noise tore Julie from her first feline slumber. A ringing and a humming bore itself into her ear. It came from underneath the pillow. Julie jumped, extending her new claws into the softness and ripping into the fabric. The source sounded small but didn’t scare from Julie’s fierce attack, continuing to ring and tune. Julie put her face down and slid her paw under the pillow to try and brush the culprit out from there. Once she managed, she sat back up and watched her bright metallic phone lie in front of her, shaking her head at each vibration it made. A few seconds passed with Julie staring at its blinking light until she felt it right to push it over the edge of her bed.

Be gone, she thought, watching it glide off. Annoying thing.

But the phone landed with a quiet “Hello?” as Julie’s dismissive tap had accepted the call. She followed the ejected object, stretching her legs before jumping off the bed and surprising herself with a perfect landing on the carpet.

“Hello, Julie? Are you there?” said the voice on the phone. Julie recognized Mathilde, her boss from the Galeries Lafayette. She didn’t sound as if she had the time to relax in the sun that morning.

“Julie, I can’t hear you. Call me back right away! It’s urgent! The Chinese are here! Where are you? Call me back!”

Toot-toot.

Julie kept looking at the phone until its light dimmed off. She yawned, closing her eyes slowly and then meowed. She opened her eyes at once. Of all of the things that she had experienced so far, this was the one that startled her. She was struck by a million tiny realizations of what had just happened, wondering if she really did make that noise. She meowed a second time.

Julie did not want to panic, as it would have been unlike her. She was an expert in emotional compartmentalization. In other words, Julie had always experienced life’s precious instances in small, digestible portions. If there had been any time or reason to panic, she would do so, but never unexpectedly or against her will.

Remaining seated on the carpet by her bedside for a quick minute, breathing calmly, and looking at nothing, Julie had all of her thoughts under control. Following a moment of clarity, when all of her first responses began to ebb away, she decided to walk over to the oval mirror by her cabinet and get a full look at what was going on. She approached the upwards-facing mirror, where she would normally be standing, tapped the bottom tip, and thus turned it at herself.

In the reflection, where for twenty-five years she had been met by the familiar freckles of her youthful face, the face of a ginger cat was now looking back at her. Her curly mane of red hair was replaced with lush and shiny ginger fur, dotted by white patches on her forehead and the ends of her paws. Behind her seated figure, a fuzzy tail waved back and forth at her as if luring a welcome into this new reality. She was a cute cat, she had to admit. Long whiskers, a slender figure, and an adorable little head, centered by a pink button nose. The reflection’s green eyes she recognized as her own. Even though their vertical pupils weren’t what she was used to, there was a familiarity in their warm hue that gave Julie comfort. Along with all of her past memory and the ability to perceive it as a reassuring detail.

The initial fright continued to wear off the longer she looked at her new reflection. Julie wondered if this had all been a dream, her human form swimming through the delta waves of her own imagination. Nonsense, she thought, a cat didn’t think like a human, could it? It had to be a dream. If only the hairs hadn’t stood up on her back at that exact moment. She felt her paws keeping the ground below, her hind legs standing up, the end of her tail brushing through the air, and the smells, the millions of new smells. If it were a dream, it was a mighty realistic one. She had to assume that it wasn’t, for better or for worse, turning away from the mirror to get another view of her studio. From this point of view, the wooden frames and wall-length closets looked much taller and carried a different energy than usual. There was an air of adventure around objects Julie had barely noticed before. The shapes and smells of her landlady’s old furniture were teasing her. In excitement, Julie licked her nose. Lavender, that sweet-purple scent of blooming lavender descended from the candle on her bedside table to fill her nostrils. And then a wave of old and new pages coming from her bookshelf; three yoga books, a yellow-leafed copy of Alexandre Dumas’ Monte Cristo, and an illustrated collection of Haruki Murakami’s short stories, gifted to her by her ex. The laundry basket she had thought to bring to the laundromat before opening her Bordeaux last night, a pair of socks by the entrance, and something delicious hanging in the air. It all collided in a carousel of smells firing neurons around her head. The room was more alive than she had ever felt it. She licked her nose once more and shook her head to prepare to take it in once more.

The lilies in her kitchen, a gift from her mother, smelled as if Julie was dipping her nose into the petals. The deliciousness came from down the hallway of her floor, a chicken soup or soufflé, she could taste its thickness until it was interrupted by loud clonking. Julie listened to the sound of footsteps rushing through the courtyard, six flights down. She could even hear the drops of water from her runny faucet. It was a concert!

Julie jumped onto the chair and back to her sun-drenched bed. She laid down on her back and stared onto the ceiling. The white background calmed her senses. It was surprisingly easy to control, she found. Much easier than when she was human.

Any remaining part of her anxiety went away with this realization. Julie was proud of her resolute reaction. Although she hadn’t asked for an entirely new set of pupils, a change in perspective was something she had been longing for. Maybe this was her great chance to explore the things she hadn’t been able to for long. Either way, waking up as a cat was certainly better than waking up as some revolting insect. The warming rays of the sun continued to soothe her fur.

Just another morning.

Julie stretched her legs to reach for another sunny spot on her bed, making a note of a little rumble in her tummy - a predicament that would have to wait. She dozed off.

Aloud knock on the studio door woke Julie from her second nap. She perked up her head and stared at the entrance behind her.

“Julie? Are you in there?” Spoke a female voice. Julie recognized Margot, her friend that also worked at the Galeries with her. Three more fast-paced knocks.

Julie looked down at herself and saw her ginger coat; still a cat. This was setting their friendship up for an interesting premier. She wasn’t sure how Margot would react to her new form and hesitated to move. Margot wasn’t always easy to deal with for Julie, finding her friend’s dramatic reaction to the banalest mishaps already too overblown. Margot once kept the story of an unfilled coffee pot at work alive for about a week. Julie shuddered at the thought of what she would say if she found her friend all furry.

“Julie, are you there?”

The question repeated itself from the hallway, beginning to sound desperate. “Julie, it’s me, Margot. People are worried. What’s going on?”

Alright, alright, just give me a second.

Using her tail for inertia, Julie jumped back on the floor. An exquisite landing, once again. She approached the door and jumped onto the door handle in an elegant effort, allowing the door to slide out of its lock with a loud squeak.

The door opened, and Margot burst into the room, glancing down at Julie with negligible surprise and stepping around the studio with much else but a few Ah’s and Oh’s. She walked to the bed, then the kitchen, and back into the bedroom. Margot was wearing black ballerinas from Mango, a lacy light-blue dress, and a lost expression on her face. Julie observed it all seated by the entrance and admitted to herself becoming entertained from seeing her become increasingly confused.

Margot’s dress twisted around in sync with her bouncy brown hair as she made her quick bursts around the studio. Her presence did bring with it a heavy smell of cigarette smoke, which Julie felt right away but ignored until she had to sneeze.

“Julie? Where are you? And when did you get a cat?” Margot finally spoke into a seemingly empty room. She kneeled down to pet Julie, who began to lick her nose after the sneeze.

Julie wasn’t sure how to help her friend or if she had any way to do so in the first place. She was sure that she didn’t expect to enjoy the scratching and petting as much as she did. Julie closed her eyes and bathed in the scratches for as long as they lasted. She didn’t want it to ever stop, reaching an unexpected level of calm.

“Margot, it’s me,” she muttered.

Half in ecstasy and half-expecting another meow, Julie’s words came out of her in human tongue.

Margot pulled her hands back from the animal after hearing her friend’s voice. She jumped to her feet with a look of panic and gave off one single high-pitched screech before starting to scream.

“What the hell? WHAT THE HELL? What is happening? Did you just speak?” Margot grasped her purse as if it contained anything helpful.

Julie stayed still, looking up at her friend, seated, and moving the end of her tail back and forth.

So I can speak, that’s helpful.

Julie felt an immediate obligation to let her friend know about the morning’s revelations without much regard for its oddity.

“It’s me, Margot. It’s Julie, your friend”, she got up and took a step toward a retreating Margot. “Please try not to panic, OK? It’s all right. I’m just a cat, not a snake.”

Margot looked struck, her face fading from an opaque blush-orange to a tone of translucent blue. Still holding her purse in a deadly grip, she pushed her back firmly against the wall behind her, visibly twitching between instinct and rationale. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes stopped blinking. From one moment to next, she gasped for air once more, mouthed a wordless prayer, and slumped down to the floor knocked out.

Well, that’s just great. What a diva.

Julie was a little relieved by the return of silence but felt bad for her friend, trotting over to Margot’s collapsed body. She had fallen in a most uncomfortable position. Only one of her knees had decided to fold, and both of her arms had somehow swung to her right side. It was an unflattering sight, unmarred by the beauty of her outfit.

“Why did you even come here?” Julie said out loud and began licking her friend’s face. “This is what happens when you stick your nose into other people’s business,” Julie grumbled while her tongue tasted every layer of her friend’s make-up. Margot crinkled her nose but otherwise went on with her involuntary sleep.

The revelation that she could talk moved into focus. Even though she had long calmed about the transformation, her growing hunger had started to worry Julie. She kept staring at her friend’s resting face and saw the corner of her mouth curl to one side as if to tease her about it. A few more licks later and all they produced were more smiles. The taste of strange chemicals combined with the smell of chicken still lingering in the air and Julie hadn’t the slightest idea what to do about it. Having the ability to speak and Margot show up at her doorstop was certainly going to help, but both of them needed to be awake. Simply asking her friend to give her something seemed more civilized than whatever uncivilized cats did. Scavenge, perhaps? She needed to wait until her friend came back to herself.

Despite her comments, Julie knew that Margot had been her closest friend for the last few years. The two had met five years ago working at the luxury perfume department of the Galeries. Aware of how dissimilar they were from the start, Julie often wondered if they would have stayed friends if it weren’t for the circumstance of spending most of the week in the same building. Being a similar age and having the same affinity to social drinking and sexuality helped. It made Julie rather perceptive of the general notion of the word friend.

In return, Margot had also never shied away from mentioning her distrust toward some of Julie’s heartless antics. She was more polite about it. But it enough for Julie not to feel bad about depending on her friend’s provincial simplicity. Given that, it was unsurprising to find out how different their upbringings were. Margot had grown up with her family in Nevers, a village in the dead center of the Bourgogne, between hills of vines and landscapes filled with grasshoppers and lazy cows, by her own account. She would allude to it all in apology to her mother’s frequent and frequently untimely phone calls, saying she simply didn’t understand the schedules of city life. Julie laughed along, but mostly envied Margot for the fact that her mother only ever intruded on her daughter’s life over the phone, unlike Julie’s own mother, who always did her best to appear for her intrusions personally.

Margot had told Julie a few stories from her childhood that Julie found to mark all her relevant traits of her countryside naiveté. The rest Julie filled in with her own imagination. Young Margot and her sisters running down the village’s old dirt road on a Saturday morning to get the breakfast bread for their father, who waited patiently on the veranda after an honest week’s work. Rough hands and voiced by a heavy Portuguese accent, he had met his wife during the month he spent at the lumber processing plant in Limoges where she was from. Their affection had always been unattainably passionate and had resulted in at least one of their daughters’ unrealistic expectations for her own love life.

Margot never asked too many questions about why things were the way they were. Just like that image of her childhood breakfast, Julie saw Margot live her life as told, excelling at chasing grasshoppers and getting bread. Anything that was in line with her idea of an adorable life. Julie had often watched her disappear back into that world in the middle of a workday. In between shifts or when the busy aisles of the shop would die down a little, Margot would hold still and smile into nothing. That’s when Julie knew her friend was back there, probably running around a rolling hill of flowers and thinking of how wonderful it all was.

With other people, Margot’s innocent character showed best during the usual lunchtime gossip. Julie remembered last spring when Margot undertook the unsolicited step to start a gossip completely by herself, a brave yet ultimately doomed undertaking. She told Julie and Yousri, their gay colleague from men’s outerwear, that Emmanuel from discounted jewelry was paying his private weekend lunches using the company’s credit card. While most would have agreed with this to have been somewhat dishonest, it did fall into that somewhat general category of “et donc?”, French for “is this worth wasting my precious afternoon air?”. But Margot insisted in how scandalous it was. She went on about honor and duty and how Emmanuel was morally flawed to haven taken advantage of their employer’s trust like that.

As her friend kept on with the story, Julie wondered why Margot hadn’t spiced it up to at least include buying a hooker or, better yet, burying one. It was unfathomable to her how Margot had remained so innocent even after years of city life. She had close to no scope on how to measure real darkness in character. Incidentally, it was later discovered that Emmanuel did enjoy the company of escorts in the staff changing rooms and was subsequently bumped up to chief buyer of the handbag section around Christmas.

What drew Julie to Margot still was their mutual oddness. Julie knew that Margot had overlooked as of Julie’s shortcomings as she did with Margot. Beyond the worksite assistance, it made her aware of why they had to be friends. Julie would have preferred to see their friendship as more profound, maybe even someone she loved. Instead, at most times, it was simply comforting to have someone around who couldn’t exploit her.

Julie had moved to the foot of her bed and had been looking at Margot’s collapsed figure to see if she moved. At least she had an amusing friend in her, Julie resolved. Margot’s mouth curled up once more.

Julie looked away and eyed the top of her antique bedside table that had one of Mme Dufront’s white embroidered cloths hanging over one side. While it hadn’t been much more than a dust catcher before, its location next to the window had never looked as inviting as it did now in the stronger daylight. Julie leapt up on the bed and then onto the cabinet, curling up on the doily and taking a final look at Margot’s sorry figure before shutting her eyes once again.

Julie’s hunger made it difficult for her to stay asleep. She kept jerking at each of Margot’s loud snores until an inconspicuous cirrus cloud passing over her neighbor’s rooftop caught her attention. She licked her left paw, and then her arm. Unsure of why she was doing it, Julie lured herself into a kind of hypnotic state that made her forget about her empty belly. The cloud passed, her fur soothed, and her glance fell below the sky across the courtyard. The window across framed the image of her neighbor shaving in his bathroom, half-naked. The novelty of the spectacle made Julie understand how little she cared. Unaware of the observation, the neighbor stared into the familiar reflection of his bathroom mirror, moving a satisfied face from side to side and then rattling the razor in the filled sink. Water trickled over its edges and Julie understood that it wasn’t for her to worry anymore. She no longer had to stress about the visibility of her own bedroom, her job, or how others thought of her. No more need to be nervous about the Chinese or guilty about the dozens of unanswered messages filling her dating apps. It was more than she could ever have wished for.

Living in Paris for a long time had the common side-effect of acting like a bitch in your everyday interactions. As much as Julie had hoped to evade this fate by avoiding everyday interactions altogether, there was no escape in the mayhem. She tried to be nice at times and had even spun the wheel of social relevance. She had kept up with societal waves of unironic enthusiasm toward designer moisturizer or Ashtanga yoga but never knew for what purpose. She always found herself pretending to feel their rush and, in that, very lonely. On top of that, the only council she had ever sought, Maman, had made her fully believe that there was something seriously wrong with her, so she stopped complaining. Luckily for her, Paris allowed this way of life to flourish as well: to be either shyly withdrawn or coldly cynical and not to stand out in the slightest. Everyone was so self-centered that Julie doubted anyone ever noticed anything around them. She imagined being able to walk into her downstairs Café Brutte