Murakami is a street cat. Street cats do the linguistic probability to no unnatural nomenclature. Murakami lives a language of Murakami’s own. The side streets are books, empty page books written in with steps and sauntering kisses. The parks are wonderlands, playgrounds who’s earth heart beat bounces up and down to the sweet thought of none simply, a step here, a stride there, a story going nowhere.
Particularly, Murakami is emblem of Tokyo green in his eyes, a white Persian rug skin and polar bear eats. The girls love to watch Murakami be Murakami, but don’t get too close or you might not see Murakami again. The God of love is Murakami’s sweet beloved. Whoso provides shelter in being found by being loved by beloved.
Food is offered on most improbable. He does let one particular human, Annette, in. She understands him, the other cats are cool but his wily nature imposes a sense of spacial respect, and only were all the humans as understanding as Annette we’d have world peace; Murakami thinks as he scales his new favorite pine tree, watching the pinks and blues and yellows of sunset settle on and in his eye. This is a forever moment, time is a still moving river of grey blue. The light is rainbow colored. Rose petals flutter in the air and a prehistoric bird chortles on a salmon roof tile. The red sun is still, the smiling cheeked moon full. Everything is.
-
With the pinks of sunset swathed in his cherry lit fur; he smiles, he sways his body to and fro about the city streams, believing this beauty, this life, it's alright, no where else is his body but here, and his mind free for wander, the life if wonder entails joyous expressions, silent happenings, something eternal.
A rose petal drifts through these winds and settled upon the orange of an orange. Bewildered by such an awesome sight, he swats the coming flurry of more rose petals, rolls around the oranges, naps up in the orange tree.
Just a speck on Vincents grass frame.
Her river still flows within her.
Hearing her breathe - I hear the whole forest breathe. She is natural.
Murakami positions his beigeish tail to the flow of a west to east wing situated upon the point of return, always returning to the metabolic state of progressive humanitarianism sounds pretty decent; even to a streetcat. Insofar as this ideal pursuit of an accepted people is love. That individuals are accepted as they are, met where they are, sought to be understood. Their lives must be valued, affirm ourselves our vision in this vibrant living. The ideal condition is a direction only, we never stop aspiring, always residing in comforts of our present condition.
“This is your life” is the last words the winds of today tells through Murakami, his playful mind can entertain such political philosophy and just as easy chase a single rustling leaf. Only an oleander petal colored pink and all verbose about bouncing round in cyclical recurrence in the concave wall of this alley. The oleander petal spins in circles for the wind keeps-a-blowing.
He’s a saint insofar the infinitude of the creator of the universes reach touches upon a reflecting surface smile that is Murakami’s eye in sweet smile. Divinity last a while, while time regains her spinning hands and in each moment the door is easily left open and in flows everlasting.
Just then the alley concave door with the swirling oleander petal opens and in through is a duck the size of a horse, dancing.
Murakami awakes on the jade green bough of his favorite pine tree. The lower lip of land holds long wavy shadows. The upper lip of sky is wide, pink and plush and blue. The mouth eats the sun and Murakami is hungry.
Scaling the stairs that are spiraling backward through time - Murakami lowers down to the root ground of the pine. To a coffee shop he goes.
There is another cat, possibly his brother he thinks, most people are related in this way and anyway all are brothers and sisters and they, they ought be accepted and supported as such. When one’s water level is low, a friend happens to have in their flux and overflow for which the commune living of all people is established in secure reason; for life must be lived, life always seeks more life.
He notices a flowering weed blossoming in this nose sniffling spring, just so absurdly blooming despite all possibility in the cracks of asphalts. And though no one expected such a flower in this peculiar place, Murakami holds it to be quite the phantasmagorical laugh on what reality really is. Beauty conquers the in-opportune.
Just as Murakami arrives to the coffeehouse, a light amalgamation of color and particle effect flickers into his eyes. His doppelganger brother is not here on this hour, or had just left. Cats have good smell, he knows, for he is a cat himself.
Nader is not a cat and if he were he’d actually be a pelican bird who soars so high because he gets his fill on the thrill of being beyond by. Murakami brushes his long tale of thought and shorter tail of fur so unseemingly into Nader’s arm as he is quickened slow by last evenings serene panic which beset him a sense of union with all living extremities by the source of all extension reaching back within again in the wake of bed, all misty wet with mystic overture.
Nader is not your typical middle eastern friend to a cafe. He came alone at first. Spent many long evenings catching full glances of this interactive play playing out before him when in sips of his hot latter and his large soft brown and umber paint eyes glisten above the porcelain white of a cup tipping up, disappearing his gaze into what must be inward directed thought and in the cup coming down and his swallow to his latte, the book on his lap and spinning pen in his hand has again his full attention.
That was till Murakami brushed by, invoked a sense of serenity surrender to the active pen, prescribing an intellect cohorted softly by passions of emotion could undertake a philosophy on fading into another. He sighs, bends slow to swath his smooth intellectual hands in Murakami’s fur. Reaching back up to retrieve a muffin on his oriental plate he obliges himself in giving to Murakami. A deep purr rolls through the orange dim late night cafe.
Murakami simply meandering about, notwithstanding any particulars and all enveloped in universal thought. At certain times the cloak of time undresses and he surpasses the present in a single source of wisdom which brought peace.
He’d open his eyes, grace the scene with his swooning stroll step and carefree predilections. Some might venture to think a cat who’s thought encapsulates every whom following predicate could not be so complex being of a carefree predilection as such. As such, Murakami was not like most cats.
The people of the cafe knew well the nobility that is in what you see is what you are. Or more rightly, left, centered on the how in how we see is a positive motivating force for others and ourselves, establishing a unitive third for which most fine established religions and deep mysticism have encountered within, without, all about - exclaiming as they should this God of love lives in all. Even Murakami as he kindly receives the touch of one of his familiar friends. Their hands stream through his hairs, like currents in still flowing water.
She’s cute, the one he’s nuzzled to, receiving magic touch from, responding in deep purrs and quite possibly finding himself in how she makes him feel. He’s safe, comfortable, warm, he remembers no past, anticipates no future, he’s only content in the present of this forever moment.
Not till 10pm does the coffee house close its doors, dim off the lights and send home its homely crowd. Murakami is given leftover pastries, a peach scone and gluten free, keto bar baked in house. He takes a bite of the latter, letters his step lateral and drifts off in a sleepy walk.
At ground level the world is different than human level, there’s not much plot of looking ahead, nor remembering behind to do. And what for does Murakami care for that view from which he’s never looked. He’s content meandering late night somewhere, anywhere is somewhere and so long as he is somewhere he feels this is where he ought to be. Everywhere he needs is within him always. He is always.
Murakami tends to find magic upon full moons such as these. Yesterday’s rains have left little puddles scattered all through the alleyways and soft mushy marshes when he reaches the park. Dews in the long grass appear as stars who’ve come to settle and sleep so dreamy here on earth. His squishing steps send ripples of waves past the singing crickets and a fuzzy blue orange caterpillar crawls along.
-
Murakami meets with a group of more cats, not that he sought them out, or that the group was already formed and found him here in the meadow on a late spring evening where fireflies stuck to the air like disappearing acts from stars, little conduits of light they are that get Murakami the quelling wonder attitude he so often keep his heart open for and most perceptible to, even and especially in strange moments as this when on the full moon seven cats all seemingly unguided by predisposition did gather at once in the middle of a starry meadow.
The events which occurred in this evening struck Murakami like lighting, because in fact, between the seven cats at the midpoint of their being lighting did strike, illuminating the green and blue Persian eyes and hazel tree and deep brown and ocean blue eyes of all the participants in this normative enlightenment.
Murakami did not remember. Only he could feel the light still striking as if to be in perpetual bursts by the backs of his closed eyelids. When he opened his Persian blue eyes into themselves Murakami was more Murakami than Murakami had ever yet been. Murakami was a street cat, yes. Before the light amalgamation yes, Murakami was a street cat. Now Murakami, looking into his own eyes, Murakami is human.
He runs his fingers through his blondish burnt sienna hair, twisting curls between his pink index finger. Running his hands to his eyes, rubbing them and opening again into the sea of awe from which he looks. He looks alright, standing naked and at the pleasure of sight that is his own.
I’m naked. I feel vulnerable. I feel more alive than I’ve ever been in life. Were each moment of life a sculpting hand - this moment is the genius expression of time’s craft. This moment, eternal.
I return my hands to my body, feeling my soul, my continuation, despite all amalgamation, rise to the surface of my pink flesh, lightly lit through the bathroom window. My body feels warm on the right side where the golden streams of light wash over me. My laugh fills the empty room and echoes back like thunder, like a comic natural wonder.
I meant to do something else, to find a fine fig tree to breathe the sweet slumbering dreams of my sleep with, having still my full belly of pastries from the coffee house. And now I can’t escape thoughts accumulating like energy needing release, that I must do something with my life.
All my life I’ve taken easy, blown wherewith the winds did blow, constructing my pleasures in sunbathing, having the kind of thoughts no cat should and now the kind of feelings a human does have. I am all too real.
Now. What does it mean to be human? Am I a past life living a new life or am I cat in a human body; am I still me?
Murakami, that’s me. I undress my thoughts like clouds dissipate into the west winds of sky. All that was, is. All that is, is all I can see. I believe in love, somehow, yes a fire ignites within my heart and my eyes open a little wider. I do not know what love is, and all this feeling suddenly surging through me, must this be love? Surely a life is to be lived, insofar as my being comprehends itself, does not incur the extent to who I may be. Who I am, this to me is mystery altogether. Who lives by soul through me, calls itself Spirit, and it’s love. In being human, I am love.
I reach my hands from inside out, the mirror is still fogged slightly from the hot shower. My body is warm and tingling and with the heat of my touch I write my name in the mist, sounding each letter and sounding syllable the whole of my name - Murakami.
The haze takes some time to settle, disappearing into the state of normalcy. How funny.
I laugh as I open the bathroom door. I step forward, fully naked into a misty orange forest landscape. Trees I have no name for stand some twenty feet tall. The warm light soothes my body, like multitudes of caressing hands delicately weaving me back to time, back to reality.
The light winds have the trees the appearance of swaying, and morning birds sing. Standing, waving with the winds full of love, I listen in, feel words backed by the breeze gust in through me. I feel one with nature. Not knowing where I am, how I got here lightly lit still, I saunter along in nature’s sweet serenade.
-
When Murakami turned back around - the door quietly closed into silence. The bathroom, the door, the mirror and his reflection all disappeared.
Murakami is a street cat.
I shuffle through late winter, early spring crackling leaves. Crunch, flickering smell breaks through into a memory I can’t quite recall, but I run my smooth lilac petal lice flesh over the breathing trunk body of a tree.
The trees have a certain aliveness to them here, they seem to speak a quiet language in their movement, with eyes I feel who watch whom - me and the distance broke by a nearby crack of a leaf. I look quick and smooth to my left-right, believing my eye I see a beigeish tail of movement trickle into a thicket of fallen oranges.
Juxtaposed by the light linen blue skies falling upward, but backdropping the scene of orange forest light crackling into the justifiably curious orange grove and the mound of oranges now shielding the sight of something, I have no regard for the matter for I notice a butterfly flutter by with the majesticism of a Pegasus parading the array of sun lit and glimmering glitter bugs bouncing in and out of colosseum pillars of prismatic light beaming through the forest canopy, and I, I’m in a mystic trance. I am seen by the nature I surround, speckling revelation springing like sunlight in a dew drop slowly gliding down the palette tones of an upper leaf and landing down onto my uplooked forehead, just between my eyes, right into a vision of my mind.
And I’m not taken ajar when now returned right-left the crunch crackle of a leaf reveals a pair of polar white puff ears poking out the orange.
Seeing that cat standing, stopping, turning contrite and a million moments blending between us, all mirrors all around me.
One by one the trees begin to fall, teeter, they topple onto another and swiftly they sink into the sticky asphalt at our feet, I hear an order for an americano, I go toward the coffeehouse, gather myself between the door frame, standing, falling, familiarity which once knew me, this new world within me, my smiling face opens and I enter in.
It’s my coffee, yup: an americano with steamed oat milk, the Murakami special says Anthony. A quick glance and rattle of his shiny gold chain round his neck sparkles, his rose quartz gauges open for me to hear him laugh loud enough to himself for me to hear and return his sight to me to ask how I’ve been. The question rocks through me and my hips sway left as I say “painting, writing - you know, living”. “Well keep it up man, you know we love seeing your work”. I smile, sip and thank for the drink, wish a good day and see you again soon my friends to them and walk to the same green table I’ve sat at for years, beside the succulents of the next-door Thai shop. They play acoustic guitar on the speakers so whenever I forget where I am, I am feeling to be in an old bamboo grove at orange sunset, serenaded by a guitar man with the head of an ox. He plays all the songs I’ve yet to play and I know them in my spirit, my body sways like its the instrument. Like as my hand glides along page reading words written in through me as though this pen were the second instrument; I, the instrument played by God. And all returns the present, sitting outside the coffeehouse, across from Nader who looks back down following a latte sip and smile to his book while I finger a succulent plant in my fingers and with the other write the next book for Nader’s hands and we all read along. Life is to be lived.