The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles by Kij Johnson

Author:Kij Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2009-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

The Monk

Small Cat and the monk stayed together for a long time. In many ways they were alike, both journeying without a goal, free to travel as fast or as slow as they liked. Small Cat continued north because she had started on the Tokaido, and she might as well see what lay at the end of it. The monk went north because he could beg for rice and talk about Buddha anywhere, and he liked adventures.

It was winter now, and a cold, snowy one. It seemed as though the sun barely rose before it set behind the mountains. The rivers they crossed were sluggish, and the lakes covered with ice, smooth as the floorboards in a house. It seemed to snow every few days, sometimes clumps heavy enough to splat when they landed, sometimes tiny flakes so light they tickled her whiskers. Small Cat didn’t like snow: it looked like feathers, but it just turned into water when it landed on her.

Small Cat liked traveling with the monk. When she had trouble wading through the snow, he let her hop onto his big straw backpack. When he begged for rice, he shared whatever he got with her. She learned to eat bits of food from his fingers, and stuck her head in his bowl if he set it down. One day she brought him a bird she had caught, as a gift. He didn’t eat the bird, just looked sad and prayed for the bird’s fate. After that she killed and ate her meals out of his sight.

The monk told stories as they walked. She lay comfortably on the backpack and watched the road unroll slowly under his feet as she listened to stories about the Buddha’s life and his search for wisdom and enlightenment. She didn’t understand what enlightenment was, exactly; but it seemed very important, for the monk said he also was looking for it. Sometimes on nights where they didn’t find anywhere to stay, and had to shelter under the heavy branches of a pine tree, he told stories about himself as well, from when he was a child.

And then the Tokaido ended. It was a day that even Small Cat could tell was about to end in a storm, as the first flakes of snow whirled down from low, dark clouds that promised more to come. Small Cat huddled atop the basket on the monk’s back, face pressed into the space between her front paws. She didn’t look up until the monk said, “There! We can sleep warm tonight.”

There was a village at the bottom of the hill they were descending: the Tokaido led through a double handful of buildings scattered along the shore of a storm-tossed lake, but it ended at the water’s edge. The opposite shore—if there was one—was hidden by snow and the gathering dusk. Now what? She mewed.

“Worried, little one?” the monk said over his shoulder. “You’ll get there! Just be patient.”

One big house rented rooms as if it were an inn.

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