Sohbetçi | Estella

Sat down to write something, assuming it will go towards “Passages in Weariness”. Surprise surprise! Sohbetçi (footnote writer from Estella) showed up with his cat.So here’s a brief from Sohbetçi for Jean Baptise’s Novella Estella.

Space | 8.21.20025

Things have to fold onto something to exist, even fold on themselves if there is nothing left to latch on to. Planets do that too. Folded things press upon themselves and feel the other. I fold my hands, let them touch each other. Wait, something is inside— a housefly. I can hear her knocking on all the walls. She is inside a living house, me. House hears her, unfolds and she flies away.

Fold anything at right angles to turn it into a home, but it must not spin, or it will shrink, explode, or fall back on its core while you are inside it. Then you’d have to collapse on your core too, that will kill you. Also, houses can’t open up by themselves like hands. You need to tear them down, perhaps set them on fire. Fire stabilizes everything. If you want to go that route, make sure there’s no fly or person inside the house before you set it ablaze.

But I am still inside the house and no one has set it on fire yet. I knock on its walls if outside can listen. Someone knocks back. Something always knocks back.

Rushed outside to find that a package had arrived— Leo, a Bombay cat. I asked the outside to stay out, and brought the cat inside and opened it, a fairly large cat from the inside I would say. I liked her. I swallowed her so she could see if I was a good fit too. We blended well, I spoke cateese and she fed me dead mice everyday. She liked me too. Then I showed her my house made of right angle walls.

“It is small”, she said.

Where shall we go then?, I asked.

Somedays you can stay inside me, others, I will live inside you.

So we made a little arrangement, and there’s Space everywhere. Cats can do that, I have learnt.

Take a cat out of a man, there will be nothing left.