A Wet Ball of Black Fur.

I am weak. By that, I mean I know my own limits - and the only reason I am not telling you this story face to face right now, is because I know that I have not yet built the strength to resist your siren’s call. I know that if I were faced with you again, in the right setting, I would delve right back into everything that could have, or should have been.

But that’s not what this is about. This is a story I just wanted to share with you, in case you might be feeling the way I have been lately. Or just for when you eventually do.

You see, I have come to understand many things about us as a species over the past while - both our qualities and our downfalls. Among our qualities is the fact that we love one another, for some seemingly unexplainable reason. By some chance, we wind up becoming attached, involved and invested in something that is not ourselves; because through that bonding, we get a sense of a greater purpose, or a safety net, or whatever else it might be - hell, we even just all spend time together SIMPLY because we would rather do that, than anything else.

But our greatest downfall is our brains. The mechanism that once ensured that our physical necessities are met in order to assure our survival, is now fighting against itself. Less than a century ago, people hardly had anything to eat; now, our problems are no longer physical - they’re existential. Most of us no longer have worries of living, especially in the society we find ourselves in - we worry about hypothetical issues. We overthink, we’re riddled with anxiety, thoughts of other people’s opinions towards us (which we KNOW do not matter, and yet all the same are the source of most of our sleepless nights). We feel as though our purpose is no longer to simply live; it is to make something of ourselves - and in all honesty, that is just SO FOOLISH.

What we need now, more than ever, is to just take a step back, sit down, and breathe.

Vienna gets very rainy. I remember that when I went, before I got the little Suzuki Samurai that I drove around in, I would take public transportation. I stayed in a hostel for about a month or so, just doing my own thing. Given that my college was in Canada and I was, at the time, in Europe, I would do my classes at night and spend most of the day working on assignments in a little cafe called “Ganseblumchen.” I went to bed at 4 AM, woke up at about noon, and left for the day.

The apartment building where I stayed was a cheap replica of every other building that had been constructed during the first world war - it was not a pretty sight. The stairway smelled like a mix of all the damp food the tenants cooked, and each windowsill had some kind of succulent resting on it, to make the building feel more humane. The railings on the side were simple black metal bars, and I remember that whenever I would run down the stairs too fast and glide my fingertips along it, the paint chipped off.

So that is where I was - I would leave my place at 12:30 or so, and walk to the bus station that was just down the street. The busses ran every half an hour, so the most I would ever have to wait was thirty minutes. While I waited, a German newspaper stand would keep me company, and I would ruffle through the images in the paper, and whenever something caught my eye, I quickly translated it online. I still cannot speak a word of German, save for a few swear words I was yelled at when my car stalled in the middle of downtown Vienna. I also cannot drive standard.

The bus was normally empty when it first came, given that my place was somewhat on the outskirts of town. However, by the time we got to the downtown area, it would be full of strangers crowding next to one another, talking and smiling occasionally.

Ganseblumchen was a beautiful cafe. The inside walls were dark red hardwood, and right behind the counter, a painting of a blonde ballerina scanned over everyone that walked in and out. I remember seeing her the first day I walked in, and staring into her cold blue eyes for a good minute before ordering my coffee. I still think about her sometimes.

There was an outdoor covered patio, with radiators and complementary blankets, and that is where I spent most of my day. I would get my espresso shot to kick start my day and a regular coffee to keep me going, then just tapped away at my laptop for hours. As I did so on a stormy afternoon, I looked out at the familiar, oxidized copper statue of Archduke Albrecht, only to notice a wet ball of black fur nestling itself beneath his pedestal. It turned to face me, and I saw its pointy ears go up for a second. Right below the statue, trying to hide from the downpour, was a jet black kitten. I grabbed one of the red blankets that the cafe provided, and walked over to the kitten. It did not move - it simply kept its head down as I made my way over to it and crouched down. The cat’s eyes were a foggy white colour, its pupils seemingly covered by a thin membrane. I waved my hand in front of it, and it had no reaction. The kitty was blind.

I picked it up in the blanket, and dried it off as I walked back to the Gasenblumchen’s patio. I placed it on my lap, and continued drying its fur under the heat of the radiator. It flinched slightly whenever my fingers brushed against its fur, as there was no way for it to predict when I would touch it; but about a half an hour later, the kitten slept soundly on my lap, purring quietly as it dreamed. I wondered about what a blind cat could dream of - and especially one that young. It had never seen anything, and had felt very few things - and yet, every few minutes, it would kick slightly or even let out a little meow. The odds of this little thing surviving out in the world by itself were zero.

This little animal did not concern itself with existential crises, and was moreover unaware that the world it lives in, is one that sees. The only thing it had ever known throughout its life up until that point, was a black world devoid of any shape, the taste of breast milk, and terrain changes beneath its little paws. It’s exactly what I was talking about at the beginning of this story - an animal whose only concern is survival. Even the tiniest living things on earth will always be driven to ensure that they survive - and every single living thing will fight with everything they have got in order to live.

And although it could not see, although it was vulnerable and although it had no way of knowing who to trust, it slept on my lap. Maybe this cat had not experienced love before - but it does not take much for any animal to realize that love means no harm; but rather ensures protection, care, safety and comfort. Despite its initial flinching, there it was now - asleep. I watched its skinny belly move up and down as it breathed, its thin ribs clearly visible through the black fur. I used a finger to pet the top of its head as it slept, and I occasionally tucked it into the blanket more tightly.

“Excuse me -” I said to a waitress as she walked by my seat. “Could I get another espresso, and just a little cup of warm table cream?”

“Absolutely.” She said, smiling. A minute later she was back, and the cat woke up as I grabbed the drinks. It meowed, a high-pitched, helpless meow, and I took that as a signal of its hunger. Dipping my finger in the table cream, I put it near its nose, and it immediately began to lick it, not letting a single drop go to waste.

Well, some drops went to waste, because by the time I was finished feeding it, I realized that about a quarter of the cup spilled on the blanket. The cat sat in the same spot, now with a belly full of milk, and fell asleep again. I finished my work sometime in the evening, and I took the bus back home. I did not have much contact with other human beings during that period in my life; but I was perfectly content with what I was doing. I was going about living my own way, not in order to make an impression, and not so that I come out of every experience with new wisdom and new acquaintances. I was simply living, and living proved to be a great comfort to me.

Life in the Western world is too fast, and much too crowded. You cannot run into someone without seeing them frantically plan their next move, following a path that they have forged for themselves without ever taking into consideration the uncertain nature of life on earth. Everybody has a big, million-dollar plan that will inevitably put them in front of everyone else, make them KNOWN to everyone around them, and give them a purpose. This mentality is lethal. Contentment is no longer associated with self-fulfilment, but rather with the reward of material riches and admiration.

Yet nothing makes me happier than thinking about that afternoon. To that little kitten, on that day, I was everything that mattered - and although it is nothing but an animal, who in the world are WE to decide what kind of life is worth more than others? Humans build walls all around themselves, and reinforce their minds and hearts with steel, making them impenetrable fortresses for anyone that is stupid enough to try and start getting to know them - and yet this living being with no chance of survival on its own, trusted me enough to fall asleep in my arms. Humans have long been proven to be unreliable - and this animal did not know it. All it knew, was that some warm creature, bigger than itself, now cared for it.

I took the cat home. Technically, no animals were allowed where I was staying, but a blind kitten seemed like the kind of thing that is so inconspicuous it would simply go unnoticed - and if it somehow did get noticed, it seemed like the kind of thing that people would understand.

I ended up naming her Penny. And for the next three weeks, Penny had become my roommate, bunkmate and best friend. She came with me every single time I went back to Ganseblumchen, and she slept on my lap everyday, like before. People began getting to know her - waitresses, regulars on the bus, people that just randomly walked by me and noticed the little furry lump of coal that sat, cuddled up on my lap. While we were at home, Penny always found a way to make the simplest things interesting. Given that she could not see, she had no idea what to expect; but it seems like the very existence of her blindness is what made her curiosity twice as strong as any other cat I’d ever met. She wouldn’t tread carefully as she walked - in fact, I would often get woken up by some thud in the middle of the night, followed by a loud shriek; so I would turn on the light, and go find her wherever she was, normally with her little nose on the floor and her paws covering her eyes. And I would bring her back to my bed, and she got to sleep on the pillow that I did not used. This series of events repeated itself several times throughout the night, but I never did lose patience with Penny; and she taught me more than I could have ever taught her.

You see, Penny taught me that you don’t need to be a powerful human in order to have a powerful impact. I can say that as far as my life goes, every single person that I have interacted with, has left some kind of an impact on my life; and even if that impact is seemingly unnoticeable, it is there - because even in a five-second interaction with a person, that is five seconds which you devoted DIRECTLY to them; it is five seconds that you will not be able to relive, five seconds which you will likely think about for at least another minute, and five seconds closer to the day you are freed from this earth. Penny only took up a few months of my time, which in the grand scheme of things is close to nothing; and besides, I had many other things to worry about during those days - my schooling, my friendships, the family business, the time-difference between Europe and North America, my clothes, my crippling caffeine addiction; but the only thing on Penny’s mind was breathing, eating, drinking, and being near me. To her, well, I was her whole world.

She taught me that just because you are disadvantaged in certain things, does not mean that you should limit yourself to anything. Penny made up for her lack of sight in so many ways: her restlessness, her tendency of getting into trouble and getting herself hurt, her very vocal personality, her preference in everything from smells to music. I would bring her with me wherever I went; and I remember the first time I stopped by a little bundle of lillies that was growing in front of somebody’s house. I put her nose in the lily, and she closed her eyes and simply inhaled. The fact that she closed her eyes BLEW me away - people unconsciously do this sometimes when smelling or tasting something, because through taking away one sense, the others become enhanced; but Penny was already blind! It seemed hauntingly human. When I pulled her away from the lily, she began meowing, so I ended up stealing one and keeping it right by her as I carried her - and she would tip her head over and let herself smell the flower. The saddest fact of today’s world is the fact that people are only driven by bad experiences, or they are driven to avoid the potential of bad experiences. The vast majority of people lack the notion of doing things just for the sake of doing them; hikes, walks, smelling flowers, looking for shapes in the clouds, having some kind of little personal ritual that nobody can take away from them. For myself, I like lining up my morning coffees in order and drinking them in this order - a double shot of espresso, a glass of iced water, and then a large cup of black coffee. During the five seconds it takes for me to go through my ritual, nothing else matters - my eyes are closed, and all I can feel is the caffeine slide down my throat and into my stomach, sending a tingle all the way to my fingertips. I owe this to Penny - she knew how to feel, and it was all she cared about. So DO THINGS, and FEEL.

At the end of the day, the very purpose of human life is to gain experience, learn from it, and pass on your wisdom. Or you can learn it and just keep it to yourself - who cares? And the coolest thing is that you don’t even have to consciously learn things from those experiences; the wisdom literally COMES with the experience. Earlier, I talked about a certain comfort that came from simply living, and not trying to assimilate new information or expertise during that time; yet it was during that time that my perspective on life switched altogether.

But always remember that experience is gained through doing things, not just through living. And the best things in life are free - always. At the end of the day, every time you look in the mirror, you see the same face; the only thing that changes is the way you view the person staring back at you. Some days you might love them, some days you might hate every single thing about them; but what Penny taught me is that no matter which one it is, I should be thankful for the fact that I have eyesight, and be able to notice them.

As for Penny, she's alright. She is currently alive and well at my grandmother's house in Romania, and from what I've been told, she has yet to lose her big personality and appreciation for life. As for me, I hope I never lose it either.