Gray Kitty

~Today I bring you a short story I wrote a few years ago for my last blog. This has been edited several times since I first wrote it, and was also modified last year to make a narrative speech. Enjoy!~

A loud thump, thump, thump resounded throughout a little house in a large, busy world. No one would yet take notice of the young girl who sat playing with her toys, which she imagined to be alive. She had no desire to see the world around her but was instead content to play her games and revel in her fantasies for a few more years.

The girl's days at that time were long and filled with joy. On one such long day, her birthday, she received a small stuffed animal fashioned as a gray, striped cat. It was quickly put to good use indoors and outdoors and was merely named “Gray Kitty.” This new toy, given out of love, was received with love and cherished well.

A year went by and still the young girl cherished the toys she considered her friends. For unknown reasons, she cared for them like no other human being could. Despite being rubbed, ripped, and tossed in the air constantly, the girl loved all her toys, especially Gray Kitty. Gray Kitty did everything with her: they climbed trees together, they finished the young girl’s homework together, and they slept together at night. Gray Kitty was always by the girl’s side.

Gray Kitty wasn’t the only toy that the girl cherished, however. Her brother had a few toys that she considered neglected. Though still young, her brother had found much greater things to set his sights on than stuffed animals. The young girl, caring not only for her own toys but also for her brother’s, took in the wayward plushies. She cared for them as her own, even brushing their hair and tying ribbons around their necks.

Over the years, the girl’s toys became more and more worn out. Still the girl loved them, still the girl cherished them. Eventually, however, the girl set them all aside. It was not because she no longer loved them but that she, too, had finally set her sights on greater things. She had found things beyond her home that excited her and was no longer content to play house with all her stuffed friends. But even after they were set aside, the toys waited patiently for her.

Every now and then, when the girl was not busy with all the matters that now occupied her life, she would stop to pick up and play with her old toys. Gray Kitty remained close to her heart and was always the first to be picked up. Even after having her fur rubbed flat against her body, the stuffing within her smashed to oblivion, and her whiskers cut off, Gray Kitty still to loved the young girl who once had played with her, and still the girl loved Gray Kitty.

Long years passed as the girl steadily forgot about all of her old toys. Then the girl left the home of her youth, and the toys would have given it all up as a lost cause had Gray Kitty not reassured them that one day, though how far away that day might be she did not know, the young girl would return to them.  And so they waited.

More years passed in silence until the girl eventually returned. Gray Kitty waited anxiously in the young girl’s old room. The girl passed through her old home, chatting with her mother and looking at the old couch where she used to do her homework, the old tree she used to climb, and finally the old bed where she used to sleep. She looked around her room curiously, and walked up to her old dresser. All her old toys were still piled on top of the piece of furniture.

After standing still for a few moments, the girl picked up one toy in particular that caught her attention: Gray Kitty. The girl touched the place where the whiskers once had been, stroked the now rough fur, and felt the stuffing poking out of a hole in Gray Kitty’s side. She hugged Gray Kitty close, holding her over her heart. She remained in that pose for several minutes as she felt her beating heart through Gray Kitty’s cloth body. She fancied that the heartbeat she felt resounded from Gray Kitty’s own heart.

The young girl smiled and gently set the old toy back on its shelf. As entertaining as they may have been, the girl’s fantasies could not replace all the truths she now knew. The woman turned to leave and continue exploring the great, busy world beyond.

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"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:11-12