Emma The Cat

A story that I wrote a long, long, long time ago... and it shows. Here it is, unedited, direct from the mid-early 1990s

Once I knew this girl, her name was Emma. One day she wandered into the garden of a grumpy old widow lady who wasn’t so pleased at her presence. The old lady called upon the gods for Emma to be transformed into a cat. Strangely enough it actually happened.

Photo by Jim on Unsplash

Emma wandered off and eventually found her way back home. When she got there she tried telling her roommates what happened to her, but all that she could do was meow at them.

Her roommates took pity on the “poor lost kitty” so they took her in.

To try and make them all see that it was really her and not just a cat, she would meow every time one of them would say something to her. They never figured it out.

One day I happened by and spoke to the cat; it meowed back at me. After a few exchanges of words and meows I somehow made the connection and realized that Emma and the cat were one.

Before her unfortunate episode, we hadn’t been the best of friends, more like loose acquaintances, but since nobody else believed me about her being the cat and all, I was the best friend she had. I was the only one who knew.

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for seven months to change her back to her former self. I’ve researched all the weird, off-beat religions with methods of changing people into cats, the occult, Neil Sedaka albums, the ingredients of Spam and a couple of other things. So far there’s been no dice, but I’m on to something right now that seems like a pretty strong lead. It’s an ancient religion from the Baltic region with all these rituals, spells, curses and such where it’s written that people can be transformed into cats. For now I’m just reading up on it, but it’s a short book so I’ll be done soon.

There, I’m done. I told you it was a short book.

Fortunately there was, written upon it’s secret pages, an incantation that supposedly can change people who have been turned into cats back into regular people, free of any and all psychological disorders despite having been changed into a cat and all.

The words are supposed to be read in a silent place while eating carrot cake.

Here goes nothing.

“Hocus cadabra - Hair of Alfalfa - Piece of tape - Man in a cape - Turn this person - In the from of a cat - Just stop flirtin’ - Back to that - Of a person dammit.”

Oh shit! I forgot the carrot cake.

I get me some carrot cake and try it again and once again it fails. Perhaps my room isn’t quiet enough. I take Emma to seven or eight other quiet places that I know to recite the words with a mouthful of carrot cake. Eventually, at the last place I try, the library, it works. Of course it’s silly that I mentioned that the library is the last place I try because if I kept on trying after it worked it would be rather pointless

Anyway Emma seems considerably pleased to be back in human form after all that time. Well, she’s pleased until she realizes that she’s completely naked in the middle of the school library.

I hand her my cardigan and tell her to wait in the ladies room until I get back with some clothes and give the secret knock.

She complies even though I don’t show her the secret knock.

My place is so close to the library that I could hit it with a well spit loogie from my porch. I go there, grab some sweatpants, a t-shirt and a pair of flip-flops because I don’t know her shoe size and head back to the library.

I give the secret knock on the ladies room door.

Emma answers it cautiously, then sees that it’s me. She takes the clothes I brought for her and closes the door again. She emerges a few minutes later fully clothed.

She expresses her gratitude to me for doing all that I have.

I’m happy too so we go out and grab a burger at the nearest fast food joint we can find.

While staring down her first burger in months, she tells me that the thing she missed most was fast food.

I doubt that, but agree with her anyway.

Photo by PJ Gal-Szabo on Unsplash