by Suchin Rai

The cat is in a small tree practicing his flying skills. He takes some deep breaths, then lifts his front legs out in the air as if they were wings and leaps off the branch and flaps his arms up and down. Then he crashes to the ground. He just sits there looking sad and discouraged.

A snake who is passing by, whose name is Jeremy, asks the cat what his name is and what he’s trying to do. The cat, whose name is Peanut, says he is practicing his flying skills.

The snake says, “Well, I don’t think you are flying very well as you just crash-landed or fell onto the ground. I look at you, and I see a cat looking back at me, an orange tabby cat. Why do you think you can fly?”

Peanut looks at the snake and says he is insulted. “I am not a cat. I am a bird. I have studied flying. I know all there is to know about flying. You have to flap your wings, put your mind to it, concentrate and position yourself just right. You take a deep breath, recite One, Two, Three twice and take a short hop off the branch. You will catch the air under your wings as you raise them, and then you can fly. I know what to do. I just need more practice.”

Jeremy shakes his head. He cannot believe what he is hearing. He says to himself that this cat really has a problem. Why can he not see that he’s not a bird? Maybe he doesn’t think he is a cat because for some reason he doesn’t want to be a cat, but what could that be?

“So,” he asks Peanut, “what is it about being a bird that is so wonderful?”

Peanut answers. “I can perch on a fence post or a tree branch and sing to the rising sun in the morning and the whole world sings with me. The trees sing as they blow in the wind. The other birds sing along with me. Insects, each with their own voices, join the chorus, and the strength of our music helps the sun to rise up into the sky. Then we can see again. It is morning.”

And, he continued, “We can go anywhere we want. We can fly over mountains and look down at ice fields and snow and colored rocks and see leopards sunbathing. We can ride the wind like a boat in the air. I don’t even have to steer because the wind knows where it’s going. That is only a problem when the wind is angry so I do not fly up into the wind when it’s angry.”

“Why would I want to be anything else than what I am? Why would I want to be anything else than a bird?”

The snake just shook his head again, and said to Peanut, “I would like to be a bird too. That sounds wonderful, and I would love to live like that but I have no legs, I have no arms, I have no feet. I am a snake. I have to be who I am.”

Peanut tells the snake he feels sorry for him. “You can be anything or anyone you want to be,” he says confidently. “Just look at me.”

Later on that same day, Peanut meets up with a dragonfly out in the sunflower patch. “Whoa! What kind of bird is that? I have never seen anything like that. I am in love. Look at those long wings, almost transparent and the beautiful colors of his body. I don’t see a beak though. Maybe he’s not a bird?”

Peanut now dreams of being a dragonfly instead of a bird. They both fly. So he should be able to take what he learned about flying and apply it to become a dragonfly. He just has to figure out how to do this.

He wants to talk to the dragonfly and find out everything he needs to know to become new again or reborn as a Dragonfly. Do dragonflies molt like caterpillars in a cocoon? If they do, he would have an awful lot to figure out to achieve his goal. Maybe it is too much. Maybe he should just stay being a bird and have a dragonfly as a friend.

Will I scare this dragonfly if I get close? Can we talk? Then he had a frightening thought. Dragonflies are small, a lot smaller than birds.

Do birds (gasp) eat dragonflies? Dare I ask him this? He tried to imagine himself being eaten by a bird. He thought of those sharp beaks. What it would be like if a bird closed its beak and he was inside its mouth and he couldn’t get out and he shivered all over and thought maybe being a dragonfly was not such a good idea after all.

He opened his eyes and looked around for the amazing dragonfly. He looked and looked and found it resting on top of Jeremy’s head.

Peanut introduced himself and asked the dragonfly what his name was. “I do not have a name,” said the dragonfly. “What would I use a name for? I just dance in the air to the wind’s music and listen to the blue color of the sky. I bow to other dragonflies I meet when I visit flowers.”

Peanut lowered his head and sighed. “What’s wrong?” asked Jeremy.” “I don’t know who I am anymore,” replied Peanut. “For a long time I thought I was a bird but I’m a failure at flying. And I tried and tried but my arms get sore. And it is so easy for our dragonfly friend here. And it’s impossibly difficult for me.

I would love to be a dragonfly, but I can’t do that either. I am just this big lump of orange fur.”

“I climbed a tree once and I was scared to try and get back down, and the only reason I did get down was I fell off a branch and I was sore for days after that. I don’t have any friends. Birds have lots of friends. I hear them singing and calling to each other and that’s why I so want to be a bird. Some of them even fly in a flock and sleep in the same tree. I sleep alone dreaming of having friends.”

“Sometimes I realize I am really a cat, but I don’t know any other cats who live in the woods like I do. It’s dangerous to live in the woods, and I get scared, and I have no one to tell me that I will be okay.”

Jeremy and the dragonfly both looked at Peanut and said, “You are good just as you are. There are a lot of really good things about being a cat. You just have to find out what they are. We’ll help you to think it out. Let’s just sit here a spell and make a list of what’s good about being a cat.”

“I’d love that” said Peanut, and so they started making a list.

* cats can climb trees
* cats can run fast
* a long time ago some people even thought cats were gods

* cats can see in the dark
* mice and chipmunks are afraid of cats

* cats do not eat worms

* cats are not afraid of thunder
* cats do not bother beavers or turtles * but cats do like to eat fish

* Cats howl to let you know it’s a full moon
* cats can jump over puddles and not get wet
* cats meow and let you know if people are wandering around if you need to hide

“So,” said Jeremy when they had finished their list, “you can see that cats are enough just being themselves. They are wonderful, and the ancient Egyptians even thought were magical and painted pictures of them on temple walls. Many, many people love cats. And you know the old saying, “the Creator doesn’t make junk.”

Jeremy left to get something to eat, and the dragonfly flew away to his flowers because he was both thirsty and hungry.

And that left Peanut happily doing a cat dance making it up as he went along with his tail swaying in the breeze. He wondered if loud purring could be called singing because if it was, he was singing as loud as he could. He sang to the trees. He sang to the owl sitting in the tree. He sang to the sky.

Finally Peanut sang, “Yes, I am Cat!”