The mysterious cat

This is a personal account - the kind we like best :) - from one of our readers, Renata. It is reproduced here verbatim.

This is a strange, yet explainable thing that happened to me about 2 months ago. 

Last May I was in Berlin visiting a friend. That was a relaxing day, we were tired and decided to do some grocery shopping and then stay home.

We went to the grocery store which was about 10 blocks from her street and we went by foot. 

On our way back, we were talking about my cat Irene and I was telling her about how much I was missing her and that I wanted to go back home to see her cause seriously, my cat is my EVERYTHING,believe it or not, and she was my only thought that day. 

We were already on my friend's street when I noticed that there was a black cat crossing the street, about 10 meters from where we were. 

I was excited to see a cat (thing that hardly happens in Germany, at least you don't see cats on the streets often) and I asked my friend if she had also seen her, but she said she didn't.

It was weird cause I know I saw that cat. I saw he was black and I saw his tail and everything.

I remember I noticed that the cat walked towards the building where we were going to, and I saw him "enter" some door (or I thought there should be a door over there, cause the cat just vanished, as if he had crossed through the wall). When I got closer, I realized that there wasn't a door over there, nor a window. There weren't bushes or anything around. Only the building where my friend lives, which has 5 floors, by the way.

I swear to God, I saw that cat entering the building but I was surprised to find out there was no way that this cat could have just crossed the wall like that.

Don't know if I can explain myself here cause English is not my first language.

I think I was thinking SO HARD about my cat Irene on that day, that she for some reason wanted me to see "her" (although she's not a black cat, she's a calico cat) in that cat. All I know is that I called home right away to ask about her. She was sleeping peacefully. 

Marcel-Louis Baugniet, Black cat in profile, cca 1924

Cats are odd creatures. They appear to know things beyond human comprehension; and perhaps they do. Maybe that's why they seem to perform things that seem impossible - that are "impossible" to us, humans, with our limited perception of the inner workings of the world.
And I sometimes wonder... did the old saying that a cat has "nine lives" really originate simply from cats' ability to save themselves from impossible situations?
Or is it maybe that people before us, in ages gone, when science was not so advanced, but individual observation of the world was, noticed cats they knew had died being alive (as I seem to have)?

Whatever it is, all creatures deserve not only to be treated with the utmost respect, but also "listened" to, so we can perhaps learn from them about the mysteries of this wide wonderful world - mysteries that purely rational thought cannot even fathom, let alone unlock. 


This story is also available - in Spanish - on Renata's own blog.
And do stay tuned because there is another story from Renata coming very soon. ;)