SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - By Akif Pirincci Page 0,80

hadn’t been invented for my kind at all: Marriage! Brrrr!

However, time would tell. The air smelled like freshly picked lemons and the fear-sweat of Roman mice, which had probably heard my call already. My vacation lay before me like a dark horse, and the future was as appetizing as a flush plate of pagliata, coratella and trippa. I opened my eyes and gazed directly at the bright morning sun, so much it hurt. And I yelled at the eternal city of my dreams: Salve Roma!

Want to read the sequel?

FELIDAE

FELIDAE ON THE ROAD

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Cat Sense

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Appendix

1. For a long time, our species was able to brag about having a naturally unique extra skill: In the fashion of a fortuneteller, who looks into a crystal ball, humans anticipate the future by pre-planning. Organisms, which are more humble intelligence-wise, don’t seem to ever think outside the horizon of the current moment though and appear to be slavishly fixated on the present. Those parts of the brain, which were most developed at the evolution of humans, actually are occupied with the planning of future projects. So it was a lesson in modesty, when it turned out a while ago that also many of our fellow creatures have the mental warehouse for futurism and making plans for the future. African chimps for example sometimes undertake very long hikes to collect granite stones, which they need to crack certain savory nuts. Behind this are not only predictive thinking and the understanding of the tool, but also the ability to keep an abstract goal (finding nuts) in mind, while there must be altogether different challenges (finding their way) coped with first.

Meanwhile scientists have found the sense for future times in other animals, too. For example in African elephants, which go on pilgrimages to faraway waterholes, long before they become very thirsty. Or in Eurasian jays, which bury food storages for imminent intermittent starvation with surprising flexibility. Jeffrey M. Masson, a famous psychoanalyst and cat expert from Berkeley, California, attributes »strategic« thinking to our cats also. Cats sometimes poise in front of a mousehole for a very long time. This gesture actually is an epitome of the core of the feline character. All mental and brain processes of the cat are highly geared to the needs of a solitary predator, which needs to analyze the hunting situation very quickly and always has to be one step ahead of the prey. Even when they lay dozing next to the heater, cats now and then bob up for no clear reason and follow some cryptical impulse. For instance, it might happen that they suspectingly inspect their food bowl (without eating) and then happily go back to the arms of Morpheus, if the world is in order. If one heads the animal off and distracts it with some toys, before it can actually put its plan into action, the plan often falls into oblivion – and the cat goes back to sleep without having achieved anything. However, this means that the animal only had a lax idea in its mind and wasn’t driven by strong environmental stimuli or intensive instincts.

Once a cute cat strayed to the analyst Masson. At night the visitor, who seemed to like it at the Masson’s, made himself comfortable in the host’s lap. »The astonishing fact about this is that it was a scam, a plan, which he must have hatched in his sweet little cat heart.« After a week when it was clear him that he was allowed to stay, he stopped this kind of »flirting« and never demeaned himself to do it again.

Literature: Jeffrey Masson: The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart. Ballantine Books 2003

2. Noah invited the animals to his ark in pairs. Later, one female and one male each were supposed to raise a family under God’s watch. What Noah didn’t think of in the heat of the moment: A lot of those couple on the ship might have been homosexual. Although a naturalist observed homosexual sex between birds already two hundred years ago, for ages scientists smothered, concealed or simply ignored this »forbidden love« among animals due to prudery. »It is clearly proven«, the anthropologist Volker Sommer from Gottingen says, »that all variants of homosexual behavior among humans can be found in animals, too. Many worms and sheep, seagulls and guinea pigs – often additionally to a heterosexual main interest – show additional gay behavior and very openly practice things, which are