I’m a cat with a very big lesson. I have to learn how to watch my Human from Heaven. This is my first day of Angel School.
My name is Pierre. Although it is unfair to the other cat angels, I am already devastatingly handsome. These wings and halo I have acquired only gild my Tuxie lily.
They really are made from feathers, just like birds. They lick like birds. They smell like birds. And they are all mine.
Sometimes I forget I have them when I chase a tuft if cloud and they billow out and suddenly I’m a parachute! The fun thing about Wing Class is always falling upwards. There are very tall willow boughs to gently bat us down.
Halo Class is even more fun. A halo is just a circle of light, and a circle is just a ball. Pierre knows what to with a ball. Our teacher Angel is a striped cat named Buddha. He twirls my halo from his paw beans just like human fingers. I love to watch the gold race around.
I loved to watch the gold race round my Lady’s eyes, and our little lawn, when I was a cat on Earth. When she waved my wand in her hand and ribbons rippled out. I loved to watch the gold race round the ring her glass of water made. I would try sometimes to catch it in my paw to drink.
But when my mind snags on memory like this, the racing gold trips up and my halo suddenly stills. Pierre is trying to learn to keep the halo spinning. The halo is a water wheel forever opening a channel to my Human. Sorrow will not let it turn.
Pierre must watch the memory on tenterclaws, let it pass.
And smile, Buddha purrs.
Buddha starts my halo turning again. I cannot miss my Lady or else I cannot see her. Pierre must hula hoop the happiness. This is an important cat angel lesson.
Another is clouds. Pierre was unprepared for the variety. Clouds come in more smells than dogs and more sizes than humans! They are every color and every nature: solid, soft, supple, sleek, sheer.
Many of my classmates are also on their first day of school, and I confess we have some Heaven zoomies. All at once we must tear across the cotton vapor, when we dive headfirst into the fluff it becomes warm wooly bunting, when we tear our mighty way free it is toilet paper! I lick whipped cream, marshmallow, mozarella, all manner of thick cloudy stuff from my paws.
Facility with clouds is so important because we will ride on them like Pierre would ride on the Roomba when the Human ran it and sang “Raspberry Purr-Et” even though she meant “Little Red PurrVette”, only these I shall ride to my Lady in the places clouds can easily attend without attracting notice: dreams, showers, closets, windowsills, the top of refrigerators. I don’t mean to brag but Pierre is at the top of his class already.
We take a break to eat minnows and dragonflies. They live in the waterfalls, but they don’t change the flavor of the water we drink. One of my classmates is a kitten. She puts her nose on my ankles near the fish. Buddha mews that she doesn’t have a Human to visit on Earth. That’s why she doesn’t have a halo.
Pierre is a gentleman. I bow my head to offer the kitten a try of my halo. Alas, the size and weight dwarf her little calico head utterly! Before Buddha or I know what to do she has fallen through many strata of chiffon clouds. A lucky bounce off an ornamental koi returns the kitten to our echelon and my halo back to me. It will take some time for tails to deflate!
I have a little composition book. It says “Pierre.” Inside are very good drawings of what it feels like to hunt many different kinds of things. I use ink on the end of my tail to highlight the best stalks, plays, pounces, and traps.
It is very important to evaluate the hunting process from the Heavenly standpoint because it is this successful integration that will bring me back to watch my Human Lady where I belong. Pierre, even as Angel, cannot simply crash the party. The Lady must be viewed and wooed by Pierre’s undimmed love and crafty feline exploits. Otherwise he is only a ghost. To be an Angel one must fuse marble and blood! I make sure my paw prints are crisp. Buddha gives me extra tuna for my creativity.
Already a flock of mandarin ducks quack and sprawl across the tops of our willows, turning into sunset in Cat Heaven. The little kitten Limbo gazes at me, Pierre. I groom her ears. She purrs. We both get an A for the day. Everyone gets an A.
We all knead the clouds into catnip cotton candy and burrow in. Buddha says the hardest lesson to learn here is waiting for the Human to be ready to see me, too.
I am Pierre le chat. Today I am learning to be an Angel.
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