Symphony on the Streets

This is a story about stray cats, or stray animals in general. The narrator tries to explain their lives from an eyewitness or philosophical viewpoint. The word Ba has a collective meaning for human beings and their world.

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Venus stretched out her furry legs and paws, with the feeling of absolute freedom and happiness. These are words to describe a state of mind in the Ba world, a comparable feeling Ba might experience. Although Ba goes to great lengths, to find it, teach themselves to find mediative enlightenment, to find true peace with nature – to find and feel something equal to Venus; it is unobtainable for the human species. Indeed, Venus, the stray long-haired tabby cat was living in the moment, but she was oblivious to any such notions. There was no imminent threat to her life, laying there on the tranquil but hard stone roadway. She had the feeling of happiness, freedom, and luxuriating in the warm radiance of the sun’s rays. This is part of the quintessential definition of - symphony of the streets. Symphony of the streets for a stray cat is a mix of random background sounds, always territorial, from the nearby rural farms, or conversely to the monotonous hubbub of the metropolis. Always territorial as dogs bark their defiance at any movement, or sounds, guarding against possible intruders. The random vocalizations of stray cats fighting. Fighting was their way of life and survival. It was part of the symphony of the streets. In Venus’ world it didn’t need to be described or philosophized; it was the default of her existence in the world, at that very moment there was a quiet and peaceful pause in her life, it was easy and natural. To be enjoyed. Being at one with nature and comfortable in her surroundings, all at the same time.

The life of a stray cat.

Ba might call it a Zen moment. The human species always had these convoluted ways of expressing a state of mind. Tranquil moments so easily and naturally found, but the ability to obtain these moments like Venus, has been lost in time. Exasperated with the replacement of junk matter called morals that have been put into their heads from the day Ba were born. For example, the Zen moment refers to a state of being within Zen meditation that embodies complete immersion in the present moment. It is characterized by mindfulness, self-awareness, and living in the present. The goal is to be clear-headed, free from distractions, and centered. So, what makes obtaining this so difficult for Ba?

Venus was having a Zen moment. Thank goodness animals, and cats including Venus, can’t read, as their pure nature and consciousness would also be suffocated by the words of philosophy and religion.

If Venus could converse with Ba about her feelings, it would be a one-way conversation, and we would imagine that Venus would soon fall asleep with boredom from listening. Ba, are always thinking about their presence in the world, their self-important lives and their attempts to bring reasoning, morals, religion and philosophy into the natural world, driven for eternity by great philosophers and thinkers such as Socrates saying important but unsettling things like "the unexamined life is not worth living." Venus on the other hand, would stretch her legs out further and ask her basic feelings if she was hungry. She didn’t care, she didn’t need to think. Thinking was for Ba, Venus just existed, existed with her surroundings. Utter acceptance.

In strange irony, in the earliest evolutionary soup of life on earth, homo-sapiens, Ba and cats probably lived closer, alongside each other, nearer nature. Crawling around on all fours, with comparable vocalizations, and comparable thoughts.

Ba the superior beings look down on stray cats, all animals like Venus enjoying a Zen moment. Any stray cat could teach Ba much more about living a natural life than philosophy and religion ever could. For example, not all of nature, all the wild species of earth could summon up a holocaust, so the supposed superior species on earth has evil flaws, flaws that separate it from nature. Ba’s teaching of philosophy and morals, having a superior sense of justice, reasoning for right and wrong, good and evil, puts them above nature. Look deep into the constant thoughts of Ba on the meaning of life, and examine the nature of Ba philosophical pursuits, and find Ba wanting. Wanting to find equilibrium and peace with nature, but ill-equipped to handle the harsh demands of a natural way of life. Always seeking comforts, and illusions.

Ba or humans’ discontent with their nature seems to be preconceived. With predictably tragic and farcical results, the human animal never ceases striving to be something that it is not. Compared to all the other species on earth, who are at one with nature, and more importantly at one with their own existence

Stray cats for example, make no such effort. A cat sits on the ground enjoying an apparently blissful and unexamined moment as the sun sets on the horizon each day and rises each morning. Free from the burdensome questions about death, love, morality and the meaning of life. Cats instead exist simply to serve their most immediate needs and keep themselves safe from danger. A basic simple life; eat, rest, and stay alive.

Venus had unusually long hair. She looked like an untidy, disheveled hairball at birth, and the characteristic never changed into her young adult years. It was the extra ounces of body fat, it was the extra hair covering, an extra layer of coat in all seasons. It made her look cute, a vision of softness, but the soft cute appearance was misleading, she was fiercely independent and a female warrior. Although thoughts of love, beauty and desire were generated by her appearance, it was an illusion. When stirred this sweet vision of a soft fluffy cat, hid a vicious temper with spiteful sharp claws ready to rip through the skin of any adversary.

Unlike all the other seven cats of Kubbeli Evler, Venus wasn’t sired or the result of Pluto’s ferocious sexual desires and appetites. She came from a very strong line of tabby cats, which all were born from Luna. Luna lived by the sea and found a steady food supply from the resident fisherman, as well as the tourist restaurants during the hot summer days. Luna led a very successful life and had many healthy litters of tabby-looking born kittens. Venus’s independent, and fierce nature were the core characteristics of Luna. The Luna litters always survived, and became healthy, resourceful stray street cats.

Luna was a mother, a great mother. Equal in importance to the legacy of the seven cats of Kubbeli Evler as Pluto.

Venus was accepted easily into the symphony of the street community, as she was born close by the Capricorn club, inside a disused cardboard box one night. On the same night, two other mothers, the mother of Moon and Mercury, both grey kittens, Jupiter and Saturn, both black and white, were born to another mother in separate litter. Unfortunately, all four kittens were abandoned by their mothers on the same night. It was an unusual circumstance, but it did create a miraculous situation, which only Luna, the mother of Venus, could have succeeded in pulling off. Only through her generosity, determination and strength of character, could the seven cats of Kubbeli Evler have survived their early life challenges. It was likely that the two other mothers died after the rigours of childbirth. Luna gave birth that night; unusually to a litter of only one single kitten – Venus, but Luna generously adopted Moon, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn that night, as her own. She had enough milk to suckle more than one kitten, and the early life sustenance from her tits sustained all five kittens in those early days of life after birth.       

This was the start of a close family, a community of stray cats brought up by Luna and Pluto, supported by many others along their destined path to defeat Fauces de la Muerte, and the evil in the Mountain.