Some say look up because there are hidden gems above. Others insist that if you keep your eyes facing forward, you’ll enjoy the best views.
I cast my eyes downward because that’s where the cats are.
Last Sunday, I visited Kobuchizawa, a small town about two hours from Tokyo in the Yatsugatake Mountains, part of Japan’s Alps. I wanted to see local cats.
As if answering my wish, a cat dashed across the quiet street as soon as I stepped out of the train station.
My mind instantly emptied of all other thoughts, and I shouted, “Cat, cat!” as if I’d just landed in South Africa and saw a lion in the wild for the first time.
I slipped into stealth mode, like a spy following its subject, keeping my distance to avoid spooking the cat but staying close so I didn’t lose it.
Then, the cat performed a magic trick worthy of David Copperfield, vanishing the instant it crossed the street.
Where did it go? There weren’t cars or boxes around for the cat to hide in. I looked up. A drone had not swooped from the sky and whisked the cat away.
The clever feline ducked into a drainage ditch, the perfect cat path.
If I were a cat, that’s precisely where I would walk. (There are days when I want to be a cat, with only one decision to make: where to nap.)
Kobuchizawa’s a cute town, which, besides stray cats, has a video cassette rental shop. That’s right—VHS movies. Or does it? Not in 2024 it doesn’t. Somehow, the cat led me back in time to 1995.
As I followed it, I gave no thought to the soundless lightning that flashed over the mountains, but later, I understood it wasn’t lightning, at least not in the way we understand how lightning behaves.
Other than the flashes of light in the sky, I perceived nothing, felt nothing, and passed through no portal, tunnel, or vortex. Actual time travel is very different from how movies portray it.
I must find that cat again, because while I’m not interested in renting a VHS movie (I don't have a machine that plays tapes, and Netflix is all I need), I desperately want to revisit 1995. In that year, as it once transpired, I had been too shy to ask Mary Hayes out on a date. But I’ve become more self-assured in the past twenty-nine years, and I won’t let that opportunity slip by again.
Will the cat give me that second chance?
Anyone who’s owned a cat knows that cats like to lead you. I now have a theory about why. All cats carry the gene that makes them want to be followed, but only a few rare cats are time-travel cats who will lead you into the past. Were there more cats with the ability to travel in time eons ago, but the time-travel gene has become recessive over the millennia? I don’t know, but perhaps one day, I’ll encounter a cat who brings me back far enough so I can find out. Meanwhile, when your cat wants you to follow it, you should because you never know when you’ll end up.
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Cute! Clever cat to find its own private, hidden channel to walk through. Secret and safe. I am enjoying the little slices of Japan., Bill.
Amazing! And not at all surprising, of course, given the many other talents that cats have. I'm sure there are others they are hiding from most humans. How fortunate you were to be chosen by this particular feline.