Today, in the North Quadra district, I came across a curious sight. Enter: ManCat. Not specifically the mancat pictured but one very much like it. A five-nine, fifty-something moustache-clad gentleman with a feline on his shoulder, peering wildly around at sights not oft available to a species mostly reserved to tall furniture and windowsills amongst your livingroom. Assumably, a man who loves his cat enough to share with it his love of adventure and long walks to the market. Balmy April afternoons, taking in the sun, returning home to recline on the sofa chair, kitty purring in his lap while the CBC drones away in what is background to a moment, primarily concerned with evening cuddles. He takes a shower while Mittens paces under the shower curtain, only to race into wet tub, batting at the droplets still tracing out of the faucet. He crawls into bed, Patches, curled deep into the nook at the back of his leg, behind the knees. Isn't that all, very assumably, sweet. Yes, all this speculation I took to mind as well, until I attempted to speak to the man toting this kitten around on his shoulder.
As it would happen, he was just a drone. A barely conscious man-slave, occupied with serving as the hands and legs of it master and superior, Marcus, the Cat. The man had no name, although Marcus informed me that he likes to speak the phrase, "Carl, what are you doing?", from time to time. Marcus Sanford, 15, tells me that in his old age, his sight just isn't what it used to be and so, to help him along with his chores and daily commute to the cafe, he acquired this human through assistance from the government. Since then, he's been getting along just fine and hopes to start work on his memoirs, this year.
This may all seem strange, if not ridiculous, governmental subsidy of human slavery aside. And while, at face-value, unbelievable, there is something unsettling about a man whose thoughts in this world have been relegated to "Carl, what are you doing" and "Cat is law". Eerie in it's reminiscence of the effects of long term exposure of the brain to methamphetamine and ethyl-alcohol. I volunteer at a downtown shelter, weekdays, and have seen much the effective degradation of the human-being in modern society. I've seen a man take a half hour to drink a cup of orange juice, not for leisure but rather for ineptitude in manipulating objects in his environment. I've witnessed a gentleman with a fond love of crack, so angry at his loose shoelaces that he proceeded to scream at and beat them, to death I'm certain, on the sidewalk. But I can honestly say, I've never seen a man enslaved by a cat. It's just unthinkable. Gives me chills, just thought of it. What are you doing, Carl?
Photo Credit: Stephen Noyes
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