The Bluestocking 2022-23

Alloe Mak | Grade 12 a philosopher and her stupid fat cat

i arrive home. the lock to my condo jams, and i spend a few seconds shimmying my key aggressively. as i do so, i can hear incessant meowing from the other side of the door before it finally clicks open. my cat is waiting in the hallway for me as he always does. the moment i open the door and he can see that it is me, he flops on the floor, belly up. a mass of beige fur, he lays there and cries until i succumb to giving him pets.

absolutely zero survival skills. stupid fat cat.

sometimes, i wonder what immeasurable good he might have done in his past life to make him deserve his current one, constantly adored, a little too well fed, and spending his days lounging in the sun which my east-facing condo easily provides. i often think that to be reborn as him would be a privilege above all others. i wonder what concerns he might have. the only time i ever see him distressed is when i feed him five minutes later than usual, or i don’t give him the catnip in my room of which he is so fond because it makes him sick.

spoilt fat cat. stupid man.

sometimes, during moments of painful, maudlin reflection and the general existential tortures of a teenage philosopher, i lie awake and cry about the nature of morality, the ever-encroaching hand of time, and the apparent devolution of the human race, and i ponder if humans were ever supposed to gain consciousness at all, or if our awareness is simply a glitch in the matrix. questioning feels wrong; knowing feels even worse. in these moments, i look to my cat, my unencumbered fat cat, whom i adore above all else, and i think that maybe living things were never supposed to contemplate such things—or at least never understand them. why do we torture ourselves if all is out of our control and all wondering does is bring us pain? why try when we know the efforts are fruitless? why attempt to grasp logos if it is inherently out of our reach? we chase the unchasable. existence feels absurd, and choosing to live in spite of it fills me with bitterness.