At first, she thought it was a hummingbird hovering in front of the fuchsia branch on that sunny spring afternoon. Then she noticed it was white, sparkling – glowing. It lacked the vibrant iridescent colors of the ruby throated hummingbirds so common in this yard. She looked closer, but, alas, the wings were beating so fast she couldn’t discern what sort of being it was.
Then, suddenly: Poof! A burst of white light! She found herself hovering in front of a pink fuchsia flower the size of her head. A large, dark paw swished past her back, blowing her sideways. Hastily she flew across the lawn to the calla lilies, and turned around.
“That’s surprising,” she thought. “I didn’t know I could fly.”
Looking back, she saw a large, gray cat moving stealth-fully across the lawn. She flew higher and landed on a plum tree branch – her shimmering skirt of layered dragonfly wings rustling as she landed.
Stalking with staccato steps, the cat moved intently toward her, big yellow eyes fixed on her, pupils down to narrow, dark slits in the bright light. Then, with sudden recognition, he stopped, and sat down.
“You’re a fairy now?” asked the cat.
Shocked to hear the cat speak, she opened her mouth to answer, but instead of words, melodic, meaningless sounds flowed from her mouth.
“Yes, I can speak!” spat back the cat. He flicked his tail.
“You understood that?” she asked, hearing her own voice as song.
“What do you think, I’m stupid?” His tail whipped in two large arcs before quivering on its way to rest on the ground. Then he stood up, strode over to the lilies and sat down, pretending not to watch her, his right ear cocked back in her direction.
“How did you know it was me if I don’t look like me?” she asked.
“Your energy signature, of course.”
“My what?”
“Your energy signature,” he repeated, enunciating slowly. “Your unique energy pattern. Like your voice – unique. Doesn’t it help you recognize people?”
“Not if I can’t see it.”
“You don’t have to see it! Can’t you sense it?” he asked in surprise. “It’s what it feels like to be sitting here with you instead of someone else.”
He stood up, turned around and stared at her now seated on the branch.
“I guess so,’ she answered, unconvincingly. Then continued with, “Why are you being so mean? Normally you’re friendly.”
“Normally you’re a lot bigger than I am.”
“So what?”
“So the bigger animal is boss.” His tail flicked a few times.
“Why don’t you talk to me when I’m human?” She asked.
“I do all the time, but you don’t understand,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak meow.”
”Get off it! You talk about body language all the time, and then you only look at faces!”
His tail was waving around wildly again.
“Obviously, I’ve upset you.” She said.
“Bravo. Very preceptive,” he said. He sat down and proceeded to clean his whiskers with a paw, to hide his sly smile.
A breeze blew through the yard, ruffling her wings and shimmering skirt, then lifting her so she was hovering again. She settled back on the branch.
“Well, I do know when you’re smiling,” she said. “Your whiskers stick out.”
He continued to preen, pretending to ignore her.
“Okay, if you’re so perceptive – what are you seeing that I’m not?”
He stopped licking his paw, and said, “you mean like the lighting storm around you when you’re upset?”
“What?”
“It’s quite a show: Pointed streaks of red and yellow lights. In your aura, as humans say.”
“You see lights around people?”
“Around every living thing,” he said.
“Oh!” she gasped, startled by the sudden appearance of light around the cat in swirling shades of blues, greens, and purples. “Oh! It’s beautiful! It’s wonderful! It’s magical!”
“It’s informative, if you’d bother to notice” he said, sounding to her like an annoyed schoolmarm.
“Oh, look! Its everywhere!” she marveled as lights and colors appeared all around the yard, making the greens greener, and the flowers brighter. The blue asters with their yellow centers virtually glowed.
Her wings started beating as her heartrate increased. She lifted off the branch, and flew over to admire the flowerbed up close.
The cat bounded after her and leaped into the air to swat at her. He missed, as she darted away and flew quickly back to the plum tree.
“That was rude!” she exclaimed.
“Weren’t you playing?” he asked with his tail twitching.
“No,” she said, smoothing out her skirt as she sat down. With a slight pout she continued with, “I don’t like being so much smaller than you. You act like I’m prey.”
“Ooh, the way you fly makes me want to bat you right out of the air! It’s just so tempting!”
“Well, keep your paws off me!’ she replied indignantly. Then, “Okay, back to perception. What else?”
“It’s all about the nervous system,” answered the cat. “My spinal column – tail and all – tells all; not my face. I arch my back, my tail sticks up straight with the fur standing on end like a bottle brush, and I turn sideways to look as big as possible in the face of a threat. You know that, right?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied, annoyed by his lecture.
“Our tails always stick straight up when we’re excited. We can’t help it. But notice when we’re running to be fed, our tails stick up straight with a little crook at the end as we smell food and start to salivate.”
“I hadn’t really noticed that,” she confessed.
“Then there’s the galvanic skin response that makes our fur bristle when we’re upset. It’s an electrical signal from the spine. It’s when cats’ energy is spikey red and yellow.
“Humans don’t get it with purring either. The vibrational waves of purring should alert them to sense with their bodies; to pay attention to the subtle cues; to use multiple senses at the same time. But humans seem to need to break everything down and analyze everything separately.”
“Are you mocking science?”
“No. Believe me I’m grateful for flea medication! I’m saying humans miss observing the combination of cues.”
The wind rustled through the trees, and caressed her face and arms with the softness of a silk scarf. The sun glinted into her eyes, as she became aware of a warm, purring weight on her lap.