The Rashomon Effect

The cat stalked across the decking of a roof garden. The flowers were opening, reaching towards the milky morning sun. Where the decking met a lawn of fake grass the focus of the hunt stood looking towards the horizon. Drowsy flies flickered and fluttered in the dewy haze. The cat inched forward taking his time knowing the mouse had nowhere to hide.

The morning sun slowly heated the patio, the flies hovered lazily above the ground. The cat peered past a terracotta pot his front paw moving round it with great care. The mouse stared towards the rising sun, he could feel pressure on the belt around his waist, pulling him gently to and fro. The cat thought about the strike. He followed each movement in his head, a Zen master gently touching his front leg to the mat before the strike.

Without warning the mouse jerked forward. His belt pulling him some way across the mock-grass. The cat leapt in surprise. He gawped as the mouse moved further down the garden in fits and jumps. The flash it took the cat’s brain to process what was happening was enough for the mouse. Before the cat had even started down the garden the mouse was bouncing feet into the air and coming down in a slow graceful arc. The strings attached to his magnificent belt strained and pulled at him. The many thousands of flies that were attached to the other end of the strings shrugged away the sleep and took off into the cool morning air. How the mouse obtained his winged accomplices was a mystery to the cat. He managed one strangled hiss and a weak batting of the claw before the mouse was up and away. Into the clearing mist and out into a light blue sky.

The cat stared for a moment as his prey flew uneasily towards the horizon. He mused on the moral of the escape and began to lick his self. While the mouse escaped with great turbulence towards the heavens and clung to the hope that his glorious escape would not end in the tragedy of being dashed violently against the side of a building.

Illustration by Ma Li. Words by C. Fontaine.