Once upon a time, in days immemorial, there was a cat and a mouse who loved each other madly. In those days, animals lived in harmony and had the power to change into one another whenever a strong feeling of love bound them together. The cat could change into a mouse, and the mouse, in her turn, could turn herself into a cat.
The cat, named Ome, was madly in love with Issa. And Issa, though not madly in love herself, held an affection beyond the ordinary for Ome. She filled Issa to the brim with her presence, her graciousness and her charms, without ever once considering that they were truly a couple. This situation pained Ome deeply, and still he stayed, for his feelings were the stronger.
In ordinary times, Issa and Ome lived a perfect love and had nothing to envy in the other animals. They were enough for each other. And yet Issa took it badly that she could never live with Ome as she would have wished. And he, well aware of that impossibility, nonetheless made sure never to deepen Issa’s sorrow, but to live out a fabulous romance with her.
The cat’s power to become the mouse, and the mouse’s power to become the cat, were triggered in two very precise and consecutive situations.
When all was going well, Ome grew more attached to Issa and took it badly to see other mice close to her. He became practically furious whenever she granted them what he judged to be excessive attention. That stirred up problems between them. And then things were going badly between the two lovers.
When things were going badly, Issa became the cat and Ome the mouse. Relations flared up out of all proportion. And sometimes over mere details. In their new forms, Ome made himself very small, while Issa showed that she was the one holding the reins. She held the keys to making of their union whatever she wished: a hell, a paradise or a nothingness.
In the end, Issa would threaten to put an end to the relationship if Ome kept placing himself between her and the others, kept preventing her from living her life as she wanted, from surrounding herself with whomever she wanted, and was too intrusive for her liking. That threat only ever appeared when Ome wished Issa to change something for the good of the relationship.
Ome would then spend long evenings and long days explaining himself but, in the end, since he loved Issa too much and had eyes for her alone, he would give in to the threat, forget the rival mice and take it upon himself to say nothing of what he felt. He preferred to suffer in silence rather than lose Issa.
In the story of the cat and the mouse, whoever becomes the cat wins and lays down the law; whoever becomes the mouse must keep quiet to save their love.
And round it went again, and round again: when Ome complained, Issa grew angry and threatened to cut the relationship off. Ome would end up forgetting himself behind this love and giving in to the threat, for he could not imagine his life without her. And then it would start all over .
But until when?
What do you make of Issa?
What do you make of Ome?
M. Z.
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