Death

From time to time there was some souls who caught Death’s eyes, even after the changes in their bodies, Death was still able to recognize them. That was one of the things it liked to do when if had some free time.

This time was looking at a young boy, possibly no more than twenty-two. He was feeding some stray cats not so far from his house, the cats were happily walking around him, asking to be pet and some leaving their scents on him. Some where chasing out each other, but whenever he scolded them, they’d stop.

The next time Death went to look for him, he was walking alone in a big park inside his city. Following him, without him to notice, was Death and a little group of street cats. When the animals looked at Death, they lowered their ears with their fur bristled, even after it assure them it wasn’t here to take his soul, they were not completely relaxed. Who would?

Even so, it walked with them, standing some meters away from where the boy was serving food to them. He was happy, although he was kind of complaining of how from being three cats, now there were almost ten. He didn’t know why, but Death knew.

The first time Death noticed this soul, he was nothing more than a pigeon. Its colors too common, its height and form too normal, even its toes were incomplete and some even deformed. Nothing out of ordinary except that it was sleeping alongside two street cats.

One cat black and the other gray and white, with their backs touching the other one while the pigeon rested over the gray one. Sleeping in a dirty and dark alley in which they were hiding, no one disturbed them, no one payed any attention to them but Death, because it wasn’t common to see that kind of interaction between species.

After Death went back, it looked around to the past lives of the pigeon’s soul, finding it had a high ratio to being reborn as a cat. It was one of those few souls that carried a predilection to be born in one species, no matter how many times if was reborn. Every time it came back as a cat, it would became a leader. If it was a female, she would rise a lot of abandoned kittens, and sometimes led them to good humans. If it was a male, it would be the fiercer and the one that protected the weakest cats, sometimes even helping them to run away from their homes.

But even if that soul didn’t reborn as a cat, if it could move around and be stronger than most cats, it’ll be a protector to them. When it couldn’t do much, like when a pigeon or any other little mammal, the cats would surround it to guard it. Likewise, if the soul reborn as an insignificant or unmovable being, it would die in a few days (sometimes hours).

Death knew it, it was a capricious soul, dramatic some even could say. If it couldn’t be with cats or if it was too desperate to be a cat anew, it would take its own life, direct or indirectly. Only because it wasn’t a tired soul, Death let it be, knowing how good it was for the cats and that it could never do any harm to no one being as it was.

“Kind, fierce and lovely soul, I can see it in your eyes” Death whispered without taking its eyes out of the boy smiling to the cats. “You no longer want to be in this life, you want to be a cat again, but let me tell you, I’ll force you to be here a few years more, until you can fulfill your dream.”

When Death turned around, it came to face a young tree. It was a willow, no more than ten years old, its trunk still too thin so it was growing a bit crooked. It might look as the leaves were the reason, but Death knew.

Caressing its leaves, “It’s been just ten years and you’re already tired? You shouldn’t even have conscience, N.” After that Death went back to its job.