… a cat standing on a paddleboard. Yes, a cat standing, as large as life, on a paddleboard. Sam wasn’t sure with what he was more taken aback: the distinctive appearance of the cat or the very colourful (and presumably expensive) paddleboard. The sun was shining directly on the cat, illuminating its remarkable coat which sparkled like gold tinsel on a Christmas tree. Sam found himself mesmerised; but was also questioning whether he had actually woken up this morning. Or that this was, in fact, a dream. As he moved closer to the small gathering, the otherworldly, and remarkably dexterous, cat stared right at him. It was a large, muscular cat with large green eyes and the markings of a leopard. A leopard? What was a leopard doing in a canal in the (almost) middle of nowhere? Anyway, before he got carried away he realised the cat was too small to be a leopard and it did not look young enough to be a cub. It was more likely one of those Bengal or Savannah cats that had become increasingly popular with the middle class(es); especially university lecturers and professors. There were rumours at Sam’s university that teaching staff were being more positively evaluated by students whose pets would ‘appear’ during online synchronous, and asynchronous, sessions recorded at home. The prettier and more exotic the pet, the better the evaluation. Of course, the last academic to win ‘Best Lecturer’ at the Student-led Teaching Awards has a bearded dragon that the students called Harry.
Sam had heard tales recalling the realities living with such cats. A colleague once lived with a particularly large one that not only terrorised the neighbourhood but also his own Rottweiler, Sukhi. The cat was his girlfriend’s and she would - and could - not live without said cat. Not long after she moved in, the neighbours would start begging Sam’s colleague to not let the cat out. Apparently, it was bullying just about every other pet on the estate. But, he confessed to Sam, he couldn’t leave it in the house. It would destroy everything. He told Sam that one day he came home from work to find curtains, dish towels, toilet paper, magazines, mail, plastic bags, sanitary towels and every pen that was in the house (including a fountain pen – with his initials on it no less - that he had misplaced years previous) all ripped, skewered and left-for-dead all over the house. He had looked almost traumatised re-telling that story, with his skin tone getting paler with each second of disclosure; with cold beads of sweat incrementally oozing from his forehead simultaneously.
Then, he disclosed, he kept hearing this gut-wrenching fusion of both a low howl and a whimper. Sukhi was cowered, and shaking, in the bathtub. Every bottle of shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, bath bomb, razor and shower gel had been gratuitously swiped into the bathtub. Poor Sukhi was buried underneath it all, flummoxed as to what she had done to receive such torture and humiliation. He sat his girlfriend down that night, pleading that this could not go on; that something had to be done. But, no man can separate une femme from her feline. Both moved out two weeks later. Sukhi actually had the audacity to whine for, and mourn, that cat for months afterwards. Stockholm Syndrome had set in at a remarkable velocity.
Both Sam and the paddle-boarding cat reached the bank of the canal at almost the same moment, with the cat swooshing past him into the fields. The dog and two of the three people, who had been standing at the bank, immediately chased after the cat; the two people arguing all the while about to whom he ‘belonged’. Sam smirked – this was a cat that belonged to no one but itself. Then, he looked at the third person, a middle-aged man dressed in leisure sportswear, who looked resigned and almost overcome by his own thoughts.
But, obviously, curiosity got the better of Sam, and he asked the man, “So… what’s the story with the cat and the paddleboard?”
It took some seconds, but the man finally looked at him; non-verbally communicating a range of emotions - conflicting emotions - through his eyes. Just as he was about to answer, he could hear voices – not too far away – arguing with each other; and punctuated with the sounds of at least two dogs barking. Both Sam and the middle-aged man instinctively turned around to try and discern what was happening….
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