If Cats Disappeared From The World

The postman remembers Lettuce dying. The cat was unable to eat and couldn’t even drink without help. He lay down and was unable to get up, though he kept trying, uncomprehending and meowing in pain and fear. He briefly managed to stand and walk unsteadily toward the postman’s mother, collapsing at her feet. The postman picked him up and settled him on his mother’s lap. The cat was trembling in pain, but began purring, and soon died peacefully and quietly. The postman called out, but his mother scolded him, saying that Lettuce was gone to a place with no more pain. They both stroked him gently, sad, dazed, and crying. Looking at the cat’s red collar, once a part of him and now an inert object, the postman realized that Lettuce was truly gone.

The postman wakes up in a panic that Cabbage isn’t in his arms, but is quickly relieved to see the cat at the foot of his bed. His mother used to say that humans don’t own cats—cats simply allow us the pleasure of their company. He sits beside Cabbage and admires how peaceful he is, imagining that the cat would agree to disappear for the postman. The postman considers what would happen if cats disappeared. Humans keep cats even though they know the cats will die first, and cats have no concept of death. Humans need cats because humans can’t grieve for themselves. The postman feels a sharp pain in his head. He takes painkillers, curls up trembling just as Lettuce did, and falls back asleep.

When Aloha asked him to decide whether to make cats disappear, the postman said he needed more time. Aloha gave him until the following day to make his decision. The postman wakes to bright sunlight. Cabbage is nowhere to be found. Hearing a distant meow outside, the postman runs the whole route of their prior walk searching. The last time he felt such a combination of physical and emotional pain was when his mother died four years ago. She had been in the hospital for a long time by that point, and the postman often rushed to visit her after receiving a phone call informing him that she’d woken with a seizure. This time he arrived to find his mother shaking and cold, apologizing for leaving him alone, confused and quite unlike her usual self. She was given a painkiller, and both she and the postman fell asleep. When he woke, his mother was also awake and back to herself. She said that she was just like Lettuce, and fondly recalled the holiday they’d taken to the hot springs. The postman’s father was not at the hospital, although the postman had called him many times asking him to come. He said he would come once he had finished repairing his wife’s broken wristwatch, which she always wore and which was the first present he’d given her when they began dating. The postman’s mother called his father sweet and emotional, explaining that different people love in different ways. She didn’t mind that her husband wasn’t there with her, she was just glad that her son was. When the postman’s father did arrive, still-broken wristwatch in hand, the postman cursed him. His mother had already died half an hour earlier. As he wept alone in the empty hospital room after his mother’s body had been taken to the funeral home, the sight of the broken watch on the bedside table reminded the postman of Lettuce’s collar.

The postman doesn’t know how his relationship with his father got so bad. They used to be close, but took their relationship for granted and neglected it. He thinks that “family” should be a verb, something you do, rather than an assumption. He and his father had simply lived with the growing distance between them until the thread connecting them fully snapped. The postman and his father were already estranged when the postman’s mother got sick; they blamed each other for not doing enough to take care of her properly. Even her death couldn’t bring them together.

The postman keeps running around the town looking for Cabbage, weeping, grief-stricken and terrified at the thought that cats might already have disappeared, leaving him completely alone. At the square where he met with his ex-girlfriend, he hears another distant meow. He follows the call, head spinning, and finds Cabbage on the counter of his ex-girlfriend’s movie theater. The postman scoops him up, weeping with relief. The postman’s ex-girlfriend tells him that Cabbage just turned up on his own, so she’s glad that the postman managed to find him. She says that this must have been his mother’s doing, and gives him a letter that his mother wrote to him while she was in the hospital. His mother decided not to send it; instead, she gave it to his ex-girlfriend, asking her to give it to him if he was ever having a hard time. The young woman tried to refuse since they had been broken up for years already by then, but his mother said that it didn’t matter if she never gave it to him—she simply wanted someone to have it. With Cabbage’s sudden appearance and the postman’s distress, it is now time for him to read it.

The postman settles with Cabbage on the sofa in the movie theater lobby and reads the letter. On the top of the page, his mother wrote a list of 10 things she wanted to do before dying, just like the postman’s own list. However, underneath, his mother wrote that her bucket list only included things she wanted for her son, so instead, she wrote a list of 10 beautiful things about him. The postman cries a lot as he reads it. He is hit by a wave of memories of his mother and all the ways she prioritized him over herself, taking care of him in big and little ways. He remembers that she never used the massage voucher he gave her for her birthday, considering it too much of a treat, and wonders if she ever took time for herself, or had any hobbies or dreams of her own. He asks himself why he never did anything to show how much he loved and appreciated her. Her death came as a shock to him because he never thought that it could happen. He remembers how she used to say that to gain something you have to lose something else. He still fears death and doesn’t want to die, but realizes now that it is even worse to prolong his own life by stealing from others.

Cabbage speaks to the postman again and tells him to stop crying. The cat wants the postman to live, so the postman should make cats disappear to do so. The postman never thought that he would be moved to tears by the words of a cat, but also figures that Cabbage would be able to communicate just as effectively without words. As the postman starts crying again, Cabbage again tells him to make cats disappear, but the postman comes to the conclusion that he will not do it. He wouldn’t be able to bear losing Cabbage. There’s a reason that things exist, and no reason good enough to make them disappear. Cabbage sees that his decision is made, and accepts it. He tells the postman to close his eyes. Whenever he was unable to stop crying as a child, his mother also used to tell him to close his eyes and smile, even if he had to force the expression. His emotions would be soothed, as though a whirlpool of warmth and light were driving out the darkness in his heart. His mother used to say that it was a secret magic trick, and that he should use it whenever he felt sad and lonely. He would often feel upset as a child and used to beg her to use her magic on him like this. Reminded of this by Cabbage, he does the magic trick himself and feels warmed. He says thank you aloud to both his mother and Cabbage. He was never able to say thank you to her before, but does so now. He remembers again how his mother used to say that cats aren’t owned, but simply allow humans the pleasure of their company. He is glad he was able to talk to Cabbage before the end.

The postman stays a while rereading the letter and stroking Cabbage. He feels a pain in his heart and knows he has one last thing he needs to do. In the final line of her letter, his mother requested that he make up with his father because she always wanted them to get along.