THE CAT THAT WASN’T SATISFIED

       There was a cat that was in service for ten bookish white poodles. He lived with them in a fabulous palace.

       The palace rose on one side of a lake that lapped against the palace walls, which were surrounded by twilled-trees and embellished by all sorts of flowers.

       The water in the lake was crystal-clear, and schools of silver fish would dart from the water and entwine into s-shapes in the deep blue air.

       The poodles pursued all the various art forms: Painting, music, poetry, theatre…meanwhile the cat worked in the kitchen, where he certainly didn’t go short of food. Once the cat had finished working, he would take pleasure in playing the harp for the poodles who would applaud him enthusiastically.

       One day the cat was rolling around, sunbathing on the beach by the lake, when he was approached by a wolf: “Oh look who it is! The cat who is a servant and dishwasher! You are locked up all day, serving that bunch of stupid bourgeois dogs that know nothing about the world. You see schools of fish jumping under your very nose and you don’t lift a paw…you have lost your hunting instinct! You live like a dead cat, an insignificant being! You are really just a coward that looks like a cat!”

       The wolf talked so much, that in the end the cat was persuaded into leaving the ten bookish poodles, and to join the wolf in trying to catch the silver fish.

       The cat and the wolf prepared everything they needed. The cat lay in wait by the lakeside, with the net between his paws while the wolf held him by the tail. A huge silver fish suddenly shot out of the water straight into the net, but its weight was too much for the cat that was dragged down into the water!

       The poor creature was struggling in enemy waters, swallowing more and more water. In his frenzy, the cat stumbled

on a sharp rock and was wounded, but the wolf didn’t lift a paw to save him. The flow pushed him into a big heap of brushwood, which the cat just managed to grab hold of and hang on for his dear life.

       Seeing the state the cat was in, not even the wolf wanted to take him along, as he was just dead weight! In the end he did take him along, but on the condition that he behaved like a humble and obedient slave.

       From then on the cat remained the wolf’s servant, living in fear of being banished or worse still, eaten in times of dearth!!