Are You in Jail?: A cat ponder

Patchtricia yawned, stretched, flexed her toes, scratched the rope on the three level catstack then turned to Pawline and Lamont and said, “Are we in jail?”

Pawline, also on the catstack, casually turned her eyes to Patchtricia and with an responsive yawn said, “Huh?”

Equally perched on the catstack (I don’t know what else to call it) gave Lamont a half lidded eye lookand meowed, “Just what do you mean, ‘in jail?.’”

Rolling over on her back Patchtricia gave another scratch to the rope and replied, “Well, we’ve been here in the Shackteau for quite a while now. But remember we used to live outside and could wander anywhere we wanted to at anytime. Now we just stay here. Is it a jail?”

Pawline arched her back, dug her claws into the blue fabric of the catstack and responded, “Well, you may remember I used to make a few breaks for the outside, successfully as you will remember while you two just stayed here. I was free to roam about and hide in the old building next door like we used to do as kittens. I also got cold and hungry and even though I was ambivalent about it, I allowed myself to be recaptured by the furless ones and put back into the heated, air-conditioned, Shackteau where we have plenty of water and food. I’ve quit trying to escape. So, if this is jail, it must be more of the Scandinavian type, though I don’t think we are being trained to do anything.”

“True,” replied Patchtricia, “and I remember our mother was free to be flattened by a truck on the highway outside. Oooo.

Lamont, sitting up eyed his sisters then pontificated, “Sisters, just what constitutes a jail? True we are confined to this area of the world. But the furless ones are also confined to earth, unless they are astronauts, then they are confined to the galaxy. The furless ones cannot fly like the birds we used to attack or the flying bugs we sometimes catch here.

Lamont continued, “I have also heard the furless ones talking -they think we can’t understand them, silly creatures – about the possibility of taking us into their house. Will that also be a jail? Is it their jail? Will we be freer there than here? There are many sides to this concept of jail. I would posit that one cat’s jail might be another cat’s place of freedom.”

After a long silence Pawline began to purr and Patchtricia said, “I think I’ll go munch on those crunchy food things. Is there any catnip left around?”