The Bakeneko: The House Cat That Changes in the Dark
Every culture that has kept cats has eventually asked itself the same quiet question at two in the morning: what, exactly, is this? The dog declared for humanity ten thousand years ago and has never wavered. The cat signed nothing. It lives at the hearth on terms it has declined to explain, watches doorways where nothing stands, and looks at its keepers, sometimes, with an attention that is not affection. Old Japan — a civilization of paper walls, fish-oil lamps, and long attentive nights — asked the question more carefully than anyone, and arrived at an answer of superb unsentimentality: the house cat is a probationary spirit . Treat it well and mind its years, and it remains a cat. But let it live too long, grow too large, or see too much — and it changes . The Japanese word says only that: bakeneko , the changed cat. And of all the monsters of the Japanese night, none begins closer to the pillow. The Signs of the Change The old households kept an actual checklist, and its items ...