Md.Nomaan Sarker
(Translated by Rabab Alam)
Everyone calls the cat Mew. She also herself really liked the name. If anyone calls the name Mew express appreciation craning her neck.
One day like every day she came to the balcony and saw that the mischievous boy of the adjacent house is walking and laughing on the wall the surrounds the house. He gets up and runs a bit and jumps outside. Every day he jumps down from really high. He does the work of jumping outside of the wall from great height every noon with great excitement. He jumps and falls on sand.
Mew say a big truck had dumped sands beside the wall of the adjacent house few days ago. The mischievous boy jumps down on that sand. And laughs. Then again comes inside the house. Then again runs on the wall. Again jumps. Like this he does it several time every day. Why he does it Mew can’t understand. Only at noon Mew stares down from the balcony of forth floor. Seeing the boy’s smile only wonders, the boy has fun doing it. It looks good. Probably it’s a really fun game. Watching the game, she also had the urge to play the game herself.
Few days later. Mew came to the balcony and like every day she saw that the boy was about to jump and fall, just at that moment an old woman saying at the adjacent house saw it. The woman screamed as she watched the boy jump which caused few people to come inside the house. Just before jumping the boy heard the scream and looked that way. As if the boy got nervous for a moment. The smile on his face disappeared, he ran passed from his usual place to jump and jumped further from there.
Mew then looked towards the old woman. She saw that the woman had fell on the ground after letting out a piercing scream. And she saw that the boy didn’t fell on the ground like usual but on the ground. The boy didn’t get up laughing like before. It’s clear something is wrong.
Mew reached her place of getting down through the space of balcony. Then came down running. Then reached second floor. Now she has come down taking stairs. She came by the stairs with fear. If someone sees her, they’ll chase her. Why people chase her when they see her, she still can’t understand why. She observed her and quickly came down and stayed away from the places where people may stay or roam. Her luck was good that no one was around.
She knew a shortcut way to go to the adjacent house, Mew went taking that way. She saw from far that some people are trying to pick up the fallen woman. Then two people took her outside the house.
Mew climbed up the wall with one jump. What happened to the mischievous boy, she had to know. She was panting. She saw a person was running towards the roads with the boy in his arms. Then rode a rickshaw with the boy. Rickshaw started to leave slowly. Mew is feeling sad about the boy. She is panting. She is understanding she is feeling bad for him. Something happened to him. Something big.
Few more days later. One afternoon, Mew came to the balcony and saw inside the adjacent house the boy was walking weighting on a stick. Mew never felt this happy before, she started to mew in happiness. She started to look the boy closely. She saw that one leg of the boy was covered with white cloth. That leg was a bit high. He was walking weighting on one stick and one leg. He was looking pale and dull. Seeing that it made her very sad. She always thought him to be mischievous. Maybe because he used to chase her whenever he saw her.
Mew came down quickly. Coming down she climbing that wall. She looked at the sands kept beside the wall. She tried to remember where the boy had fallen so many days. Every place where the boy had jumped had sands raised high. She stepped a little back. If she jumped in so much sand then she’ll sink, one day that boy had also sank in the sands. Many days she saw the boy to jump down here. She stepped more back. She stepped back to that part, where below the wall there are less sand. Jumping down here won’t hurt neither will she sink. Now Mew moved her eyes towards the boy. The boy has hurt his leg that’s why he is unable to do it. He might not be able to get up the wall running. But she can. Mew wanted to jump down like the boy for many days.
Mew started to jump on the wall and started to mew expressing her happiness. She did to attract the attention of the boy. And it worked. Suddenly the boy saw Mew over his place on the wall with wide eyes. Mew saw it is the best moment to let the boy that, someone else has learned the thing what you used to do. Even though you can do the work, other person can do it to give you happiness. Mew is really happy. She started to mew even louder.
Mew took complete preparation for jumping down on sand. She saw the boy’s eyes has widened even more and his jaw has dropped down. He is staring in astonishment. And seeing him it looks like he understood what the cat is going to do. She lifted up her body to jump and glanced to the sands and then towards to the boy like she tried to say, look at me, look at me.
Her body was in air. Now she is going to fall down. She saw, the boy’s eyes were shining. All the dullness in his face disappeared. He is laughing. And that moment she saw that old woman came running behind him. And she screamed loudly and fell down.
Mew saw while falling, listening to the screaming many people came running. And it seems many people had seen the jump of the cat. Many started to run.
After a long time, Mew saw that one by one people are taking her in their arms. Some are caressing her head, some her leg.
Someone said, ‘Few days ago the boy broke his leg falling from this wall. Today this cat fell. This wall has fault. See, see if the cat broke its leg?’
Many people started to check Mew’s leg altogether. And many started to caressed Mew’s head.
