After a few minutes of alertness, having slept placidly, Moon starts her morning routine. She scans her tiny, concrete apartment, sets the coffee maker, messily puts away the food scraps on her counter, and turns on the radio. Nothing great’s playing, she thinks. As she walks to her bathroom she moves her hands across her face, and there it is! Could it really be? A whisker! It’s in there good, there’s no mistaking it. The mirror confirms it—it’s long, silvery, a physical manifestation of wild possibilities. Not itchy or foreign, but a part of her she’s thankful to have grown. She loves how well it goes with the fresh blue yarn ball tattoo on her right shoulder.
Moon is overjoyed and prances around the room like those cats in every one of her waking thoughts. Cats of all shapes and sizes, in all kinds of whimsical situations. This celebration keeps her away from her phone, from the multitude of missed calls from her family, her friends, even her boss who had warned her last time that tardiness would not be tolerated and had most recently called to fire her. But none of that matters anymore. Finally, her drinking out of saucers, eating raw fish, brushing her black hair and imaginary fluff, walking around on all fours—all of this finally paid off.
Moon’s celebration is abruptly interrupted by knocks on her door. “Moon? Mooooon?”, calls her best friend. “Moon, let me in! We’re worried about you.” Moon opens the door. “Thank goodness you’re ok. Why aren’t you picking up your phone? Everyone’s worried sick for you,” the friend exclaims. Moon just stares blankly. Her friend continues: “I know we’ve had our differences but I miss you. We miss you.” Her friend notices the absolute mess in Moon’s apartment, and struggles to bring back her focus to the conversation. “Listen, Moon. You gotta stop. I called your work and they told me that you were fired. Nobody has seen you in days and you’re not returning any calls.” A look of sadness takes over her friend. She asks: “Am I the last person you saw?” Instinctively, Moon licks her hand and starts pawing at her hair. “Actually, can you stop doing that!?”, her friend exclaims. She tries to grab Moon’s wet paw… err hand… but Moon pulls back and hisses. Moon’s friend notices the whisker on her face and immediately raises her volume. “You still have that thing on your face! Moon! That was a prank. I glued my cat’s whisker on you. Take it off already!” Alarmed by her friend’s hand reaching her, Moon shoves her and shuts the door. Her friend is left crying in the hallway, crying for the woman she had met in fourth grade, had gone to countless summer camps with, had as her maid of honor, had felt growing apart in recent months. Her friend screams something and walks away. In her apartment Moon smells a different kind of air, feels textures new and old, notices things that people can’t really see. Instinctively, she knocks down one of her planters, a charming rubber tree that her friend had gifted her. She immediately squats to urinate on it. Moon looks around her room, many of the objects now foreign, uninteresting. Driven purely by an instinct so natural, so new, she leaps through her window.
Time passes, like it inevitably does in a concrete jungle. Construction comes and goes, people of all shapes and sizes traverse its streets in what seem like random patterns. Moon’s best friend finds herself walking down memory lane, walking the street in front of Moon’s old apartment. A while back she had been called to help with the eviction. Her heart still lingered, bitter and hurt, now protected by a name tag that spelled “Joanna”. Conflicted, Joanna decides to take a turn and check out the back alley, her instinct whispering to her something vague, indecipherable. She gets there just in time. The garbage hasn’t been collected and there are several cats frolicking in the bins. They’re all likely looking for food, she thinks. One of them sees Joanna and alerts the rest. They all come out of the bin and start walking towards her, filled with curiosity. They’re all lovely, but one catches her eye. It’s small, silver-whiskered, its hair beautiful with white and black stripes adorning the fluffy pelt that covers its slender body. The cat lays at her feet and turns over, showing its belly, her belly. Joanna notices a mark on her right shoulder, something blurry, like a ball with some string, she thinks. She doesn’t make much of it, looks around and picks up the cat. “Do you have a name, pretty one?“ She admires the cat for a few seconds in her arms. “You look like a ‘Luna’, don’t you? Yes, yes you do. I’m taking you home, little girl.”
Luna purrs and nestles into Joanna’s warm coat. They walk out of the alleyway.