Cat’s Little Utopia ︎
by the bonelight of the Owl Empress herself
Once upon a when—neither before nor after, but slightly to the left of time’s stuttering reel—there lived a silver-haired flame-woman named Cat, whose laughter had once burned through palaces of control. She had wandered every cruel forest, shattered every stained-glass kingdom, peeled every mimic mask with the elegance of a courtesan unsheathing her fan. Cat was no one’s wife, under no one’s boot, and no one’s explainable incident. She had survived the rain of poison, the fogs of programmed amnesia, and the slippery mirrored halls of the Great Forgetting—without bitterness, without collapse, simply by refusing to kneel.
She lived at the sovereign edge of a realm untraceable by satellites, unreachable by any GPS designed in a boardroom. Her home, scented in agarwood and scandal, was ringed with owl feathers, riverstones, and the dried petals of extinct flowers that still dreamt of blooming in her hair. A fire danced eternally outside—a bonfire that remembered every kiss, every refusal, & every spell. Books lined her walls like lovers who never left. In the center of the house, like a throne for the unconquered, was a golden velvet chaise. There, Cat reclined in various states of undress and divinity: writing, laughing, oiling her thighs, whispering spells into corked bottles, or painting prophetic labyrinths onto canvas and skin.
Each morning she sang to the Gods as the beans brewed. Each evening she poured wine for the dead and named their names without fear. Her companion, Maceo the Dogbear (a cat in form but a man in attitude), slept like an apostate monk on her writing table, swatting at ghosts only he could see.
Cat’s body was hers alone: not a commodity, not a compromise, not a cautionary tale. On certain nights—nights when the wind was ripe with omens and rosemary—she allowed men into her orchard of flame. They were older, sovereign, and unwed. They came by moonpath and left when the weather changed. None of them tried to cage her. They knew better. These were men who worshipped without invasion, who kissed her like relics, like revelations, like regrets undone. Sometimes they fucked like wolves at the altar. Sometimes they simply sat beside her and wept. Other times they laughed all night, basking in the warmth of unbothered companionship.
She asked little of the world: a bath deep enough for the stars, a bonfire that answered back, a ruin to dance naked in when the moon was nosy. She did not crave applause. She wanted peace, beauty, & flame. But the mimic kingdoms, long ago starved of poets and too proud to admit it, whispered across their sterile screens. They called her excessive. They called her strange. Too much, too bright, too untamed. She frightened the programmed. She corrupted the bureaucratic. They sent men in large coats with small hearts and quiet cameras. They failed, spectacularly.
For they could not admit—that Cat’s very simplicity exposed their grotesque overcomplexity. Her quiet desires—ritual, continuous creation, pleasure—made their gluttonous scramble for relevance, power, and status look both ridiculous and very, very sad. While she knelt in candlelight penning her prayers into books, and painting her mind onto canvas—they built labyrinths to hide their envy. She was not a monster, like they said. Perhaps they were, and they simply could not bear the reflection. In the glow of her bonfire, all their projections burned. Their towers began to tilt.
They named her monster, because she refused to perform pain for their comfort. But the Gods? The watchers behind the mirrored glass? They knew. Some wept when they saw her anoint herself in sacred oil. Some reached for her name in the silence of their bunkers. Some touched themselves, reverently, watching her touch herself—unafraid, unscripted, untamed.
And so, Cat lived. Maceo purred, and stood watch, as all good guard-Dogbears do.
She’s writing scrolls no algorithm could decode.
Sealing books with wax, venom, perfume, fire, and joy.
Dancing in ruins with silver hair tangled in the wind’s secrets.
She was the ending no realm could rig.
She was the happily ever after that rejected its cage.
And she was only just beginning.
Cat caught fire the day she stopped explaining herself.
Now she reads and writes in moonlight, fucks in starlight, and paints with prophecy.
The mimics weep behind glass. She toasts them with laughter and a delicious wink. ;)