by Angelita Lapuz Bradney
My daughter tells me she’s a cat. I am not her mother any more, she says, because I’m human and she is not. She wears ears and a tail, insists others don’t understand. Others including me. She doesn’t know how I fought like a tiger when she was bullied in the playground for the colour of her skin. She doesn’t remember how, to get her to sleep, I carried her in a kangaroo pouch and walked the night streets for hours while the moon glowed cold and the lights shone orange on the wet pavements. She doesn’t recall the times I held her slippery, wriggling fish body in the bath, bubbles drifting around us. The evenings I crouched beside her, parting her hair with my fingers and combing out every louse with the dexterity of a chimpanzee. How in summer we pulled ripe cherries from the tree, popping them into our mouths with the greed of parakeets. How in winter we snuggled together like dormice in a den. How I fed her milk from my body. How I shielded her from the hyenas. How I taught her to use her voice, insistent as the call of an elephant, or a wolf, or a lion. And yes, to be as independent as a cat, so that nobody would ignore her wishes.
Angelita Lapuz Bradney’s short fiction has won prizes and been published in many anthologies and literary magazines including Ellipsis Zine, Litro, and The Fiction Pool. She lives in London with her family and cat. Her website is www.angelitabradney.com
Emerge Literary Journal 