The World According to Coho

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO COHO

L. D. Clark

Coho was as proud as a cat can be of his silky golden fur. He loved to feel it fold and unfold along his shoulders and hips as he walked, showing the world what a fine cat he was. The family of people he lived with—Mama Two-Legs, Papa Two-Legs and Little Miss Two-Legs—they too adored his fur. They often bent down to stroke him along his back, while he purred and twitched his tail for joy, and meowed for good measure. Also, Little Miss Two-Legs would squeal with delight when he sneaked up and rubbed his face against her ankle, or pressed his shoulder close to her leg and slid his whole body along it.Or sometimes he would stretch out on his back with paws in the air while she knelt to tickle him under the chin and comb his chest and belly fur with her slim lovely fingers. All he had to do to repay her for this favor was really no payment at all. He had only to lie sprawled out and purr in great content.

     Now Coho and his Two-Legs family lived in a big house on a piece of land so large you could barely see the high stone fences around it when you looked out the door or through one of the windows. While growing from kittenhood to cathood, Coho never left the grounds, and was seldom out of the house. He had no reason to wish to stir at all. Everything his heart desired was at hand, with his Two-Legs family always ready and eager to serve him, and except for the relaxing to be petted he had no other duty to perform.

     Yet, when Coho was still a kitten, one puzzling thought did sometimes cross his mind. His Two-Legs family often spoke of him to others of their kind as ‘our’ cat. Well, now really, since it was their place to serve him and so little was required of him in return, didn’t they in a sense belong to him? Were they not, so to speak, ‘his’ people? But, all in all, he did not let this flaw trouble him greatly. In a world divided between the Four-Legs People and the Two-Legs People, perhaps this was simply the way it had to be, and who could do anything to change that?

     But then right at the time Coho was entering cathood a new and serious problem arose. He found he could understand every word his Two-Legs family spoke, either to each other or to him. And he could answer. But then came the hard part. They ought to pick up on his talk as quickly as he did on theirs? But no, they did not. Not a whit. Let him try as he might to speak clear words in the right order, and they fell on deaf ears. Or might as well have, for all they ever did was laugh and say, “Listen to Coho meow!” or “Listen to Coho purr!”

     So at last he gave up trying, though his attempts had at least one pleasing effect. When they spoke to him they always used grown-up language, not baby talk. He appreciated that. Except for an elderly Aunt Two-Legs who often came to visit. She always mouthed out baby talk, which he hated like fury. One day as he stood at the back door meowing for someone to let him out, she said, “Did’ums wanta go outside?” 

     For the first and truly the only time in his life, he felt like scratching a Two-Legs face till the blood ran....

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