An_Everyday_Journey

An everyday journey Once upon a time there was a young married couple. They lived in a quiet outskirt of a small city. Their most precious property was their beloved cat, a giant grey fluff ball, named Copernicus, after the great astronomer. The couple really loved him, but something didn’t left them in peace: where does he spends his days' They found a way to find it out, they put a small camera on the cat’s collar, which makes a picture every 10 minutes. They put the collar on, and let Copernicus out. He stood in front of the door for a while, then scratched his ears, stretched and led his steps towards the hedge. The next minute he was already on the top of the brown wooden fence, and headed towards the neighbor’s terrace with the typical mixture of laziness and grace that only a cat can possess. The next-door lady was sitting in her wheelchair, solving a crossword. Copernicus rubbed his nose to the lady’s leg and purred as loud as he could. When the woman noticed him a kind smile appeared on her lips and she greeted the cat with sweet words. “Good morning little lord. I’ve been waiting for you. How did you know I have just finished my breakfast' Do you know what I have for you' That’s right! Milk, just as you like it.” She drove her chair into the house, and after a few seconds she appeared with a bowl full of soft and creamy milk. She placed it in front of the kitten, who started to gobble it right away with visible pleasure on his face. He ate for a while, and when he finished it, like a job well done, he jumped up to the old lady’s knees, and started purring. “They called again. They are trying to convince me to give an interview. Like they didn’t have any more interesting news than the ‘star of the Polish volleyball team on the 1944 Olympic Games’.”-she said to the cat, and petted his throat, to which he replied with a calming purring-“That’s how they call me! Ridiculous. They want to know about my accident, and how I could continue. Ridiculous! Ah! You have fallen asleep. Then I'll close my mouth, before I wake you up” she stopped talking, but continued petting the burly tom-cat, and thought back at her past, which was only known by this little fur ball in the whole neighborhood. That was her secret. She re-experienced her successes, and her one big failure. They sat like that for a while, when the door bell awakened Copernicus. It was the grandchildren of the lady. They hardly visited the old woman, but when they did, they didn’t let poor Copernicus alone. The old lady still liked them, unlike the cat, so he just got away as quick as he could. He continued his daily routine towards the fence of the backyard. It was rather late, and he became hungry. It was time for pre-lunch. He headed to his second source of food, a little garret of a house at the end of the street. He trailed his voluminous bottom up to the window and started meowing. A young man opened the window, and let him in. He wore a lab coat and looked like someone who had just been interrupted in something very important. “All right! Here is what you came for” and he passed a dish full of chicken skin to the cat. “But be fast and be careful, I’m in the middle of a serious experiment!” He watched Copernicus silently while he finished his lunch, then he turned back to his work. When the cat cleaned up the last bites from his bowl he jumped up to the table, where the man was working, turned to the man and pushed his little pink nose to his elbow and purred. Accidentally he pushed a flask filled with transparent liquid, which was poured into a beaker filled with light purple powder. A sparkling beam spread from the direction of the apparatus. The man threw the cat outside, to protect him from the potential harm, and to save what he could of his work. Copernicus was sitting on the ledge in hope of more delicious bites. Inside he saw his human friend running from one end of the room to another. He was angry with the cat, and mainly with himself, because it was his fault for letting him in, in the middle of his work. He wasn’t that angry seven years later, after he got the Nobel Prize for his discovery, which was based on this accident. When Copernicus realized he wouldn’t get any more food from here he moved forward to his next step in his daily routine. He continued his way on the street towards a grand villa. He climbed the wrought iron fence, and he was already inside the grand and well-maintained garden. The perfect green lawn tickled his paws. On the other side of a grand glass door a middle aged woman was sitting in front of an ebony piano. She looked stressed. She bent over the keyboard, but this didn’t bother Copernicus, he jumped up to the instrument. His tiny paws pushed some keys, which distracted the women from her self-pity. She smiled at the cat and playfully pushed some keys, because of which he recoiled joyfully. He let his head down, as cats usually do when they are in the middle of a game. Suddenly, the random movements of the woman’s fingers transformed into a charming melody. When she noticed this she replayed the previous sounds and realized that it a great and touching song. As quickly as she could she sketched down the notes, and turned to Copernicus. She grabbed him, and as if she wasn’t the woman who had been sitting hopelessly in front of her piano just a minute before, she started to spin around the room and dance. She didn’t do this for long, because she was afraid she might shake up the poor cat’s stomach, so she rather rushed to the kitchen and brought some left-over from her lunch to him as a reward. He bolted it down as fast as he could, and settled on top of the piano. He enjoyed the music for a while; he might have fallen asleep as well. It started to get dark when he decided to go home. After this tiring day he crawled home, where he first of all asked for his well-deserved dinner. His owners first took down his collar to see the photos, and opened a new can of cat food for him. While he was filling himself with the content of his bowl, the couple recalled the photos. As they expected most of the pictures were blurred, but they found quite interesting ones as well. At least what they found interesting. On most of the pictures there were nothing else but grass and leafs, but they found three pictures with three unknown bowls. ”We should have known! He’s been eating all day, and still asks for food.”-said the husband. They spent their evening with the pictures, and tried to guess where their beloved kitten had gone on that day. They couldn’t get closer to the mystery of their cat’s everyday life, but they had fun with it. They had the pictures, but they still didn’t know how many significant activities their cat had that day. They couldn’t find out how many people he managed to give hope, or how much people’s life he changed. Copernicus stretched and occupied his little bed, as his stomach was finally full, he could fell asleep. He didn’t even realize himself how much he had worked for his food.