Almost Daily Cat Haiku

I keep getting days confused. All day yesterday, I thought today was going to be Thursday. But I knew it was Tuesday, so today would be Wednesday. So I simultaneously felt as though I’d be waking up to a Thursday and a Wednesday. The only explanation is cosmic cat fur embedded in the fabric of space and time. Quantum dust bunnies, as it were. 

That actually makes a lot of sense….

The universe is just a cat toy. Back when it was new, the cats would play with it frequently. Batting it back and forth across an interdimensional floor, rubbing their faces against its interstellar crinkly bits, absorbing the cosmos’ intoxicating nip. But eventually, they grow bored with it. One final swat, and the the universe tumbles under the couch, sweeping up bits of dust and hair that bind to it. And as it sits, amassing detrital regolith, creation begins. Beyond subatomic in spacial comparison to the cats who have all but forgotten it, our universe leaps through a cosmic evolution. A millennium passes in a matter of days, the cats are occupied by a hair tie or one of those plastic rings from the cap of a milk jug, no memory of the sparkly bit of felt and stuffing now gathering fluff beneath the furniture. Entire epochs pass by the end of the next week. A hundred billion specks of dust cluster about the forgotten toy, each a mass of even smaller particles.  And within just one of those smaller particles, millions of points of light, so tiny, the ecosystem beneath the sofa cannot perceive it. And floating around one of those inconceivable sparks, nine smaller pieces of matter float. Each a different size, different material, spinning and encircling the light and warmth of their central hub. On just one of those infinitesimal tidbits, moisture roils across the surface. And within that moisture, Life.

Outside the wedge of emptiness under the couch, a another day passes. The cats nap, their bellies full of snacks. On that diminutive morsel of mud, the new life rockets through change. Organisms grow, mutate, specialize to the climate of one area of the speck or another. Countless species; entire taxonomic families, rise and fall through catastrophic extinctions before the cats wake up for breakfast the next morning. By noon, mammals dominate. Within the hour, primates develop tools, language, social structure.  Twenty three minutes later, Egypt unites and the Great Pyramids are built. Seven minutes later, Ying Zheng brings all of China under his singular rule to start the Qin Dynasty. It ends before you can finish reading that sentence. The Roman Empire flares into existence and within a minute they occupy all of north Africa and Europe. It sputters out another minute later. Over the next half hour, thousands of cultures form across six of the recognized continents, each with hundreds of subcultures and languages. They go to war with each other immediately. And it hasn’t stopped yet.

Our little moist rock, just one of nine motes of dust hugging a few disintegrating hydrogen atoms. That ball of burning gas is just one among the billions that swirl around an unknown gravitronic point. One swirling mass among a billion others, nestled in a shell of dust and fur wrapped around a cat toy, forgotten and out of paws reach beneath the couch. Until someone cleans.

Someday in the future, could be later this week, could be a hundred billion years from now. A device will appear, scattering the cats, and create an immense vacuum outside our universe. And once the force of that instrument is directed beneath the chairs and bookshelves, it will find our little corner of darkness, seemingly safe from the currents that stir the fuzz and lint outside our universe. It will shred and tear each part of that universe away from every other part, leaving just a cat toy. A toy that will be casually tossed into a basket of other toys. Dustless. Lifeless.

Until a curious feline rediscovers it anew. And it becomes an article of attention. Played with. Tossed about the house. Battered across the floor. A favorite amidst the carnival of catnip stuffed chattels. Until it’s not. Until the moment it disappears beyond reach, beneath the couch. And begins, again, to collect a universe worth of dust.

And that’s why I haven’t vacuumed.

Anycrap. I need to make a lunch and go to work. Have a day, everyone.

Have. A. Day.