The International Writers Magazine: Dreamscapes

Queen & Cat • Janice Slater After examining her face in the mirror, Queen raised her hand to her head to adjust her crown. “My Crown!” She exclaimed. “It seems to have a dint in it!”

Cat let one eyelid shut, quickly snapped the other with its camera-lens-like shutter and fell into a catnap and purred...to himself…or so he thought…

A Queen with a dint in her crown just isn’t a Queen anymore.

Cat stretched a grin from ear to ear and yawned – and, with a relaxed gesture of his gartered right forepaw, tucked it under his chin, and purred.

Queen snapped. “Perhaps Cat sat on it!   Perhaps Cat’s stolen my identity and has hidden it underneath his whiskers!”

Cat’s eyes opened fast and then he sprang to his feet.

Cat screeched. “Your Highness -  Not me!”

Queen would have none of his excuses. 

“If I have lost my identity then ...then who are you? If I no longer know you to be whoever you are, then whoever you are does not exist!” 

Cat’s fur stood up on end, his eyes opened wide.

Queen brought her face closer in to this unidentifiable object once known as Cat, and with her Crown still askew she said: "What is left of that identity that both you and I thought we to be is gone! Vanished!”

Cat leapt through the air onto the windowsill and made a terrible noise on the glass as he scratched to be let out. Then he turned and bowed so lowly that he almost fell off the ledge....

“Your Majesty...” Cat said.... “You will always be my Queen...and I your humble servant, M. le Cat.”
“M. le Cat?  What is that?  What is Cat?  As for all the rest of what you have said I know not of!  Your Majesty…and Queen?  Are these frivolities you name? Of what nonsense do you speak?” 

Queen lifted the Crown off her head, brought it under her nose for closer examination then in one swift gesture put it on Cat's head. 

Cat stared anxiously but dared not purr. 

Cat!  You napped in the wrong place!

Cat meowed and meowed to be let out. 

The invisible Queen said.  A little less purrfect, M le Cat, than you thought yourself to be, hmmm?   Queen in name only – A dint or not a dint!!!  A Queen or not a Queen? A Cat or not a Cat?”

Then the invisible Queen leant forward and lifted her Crown back off M le Cat’s temple and she began to pull it back into shape. She patted it back on her head again and then she paced around the room.

“It’s the way that it is! I am wearing the so-called Queen’s crown with a slight dint in it. We are both a little less purrfect a Queen and Cat than you and I thought ourselves to be.” 

With that, Cat sprang to his feet and leapt into the so-called Queen’s arms. The Crown with the slightest dint in it toppled off her head and smashed into trillions of pieces....

Both he and Queen grinned at each other.

Now we are both free of a fixed identity!

The cat-less M. le Cat purred and the so-called Queen laughed...journey to be continued.

© Janice Slater 2010-09-07
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