The Cat That Was Human

Once there was a cat so convinced he's human. We called him Bambang. There were 8 of us in the house, and each of us has our own story of how we met Bambang for the first time. Mine was when I sat alone, minding my own business, when he came out of nowhere and sat on my lap. I was alone. He figured that I need company. That was when I met him for the first time. I took my guitar, played him a song by Cat Stevens just because the name of that singer fits, and welcomed him into my room

Bambang officially became the 9th member of the house after Azhar Hussein gave him a bath, (although he hated it), Hadi Fadhil gave him Friskies (he prefers it to be served in the dustbin), and after Ismayudin Ismail hated him for voiding in front of his room. Before long, we noticed that Bambang has some typical human behavior: he watches TV on the couch, sleeps on our beds, eats chicken steak from Clemmons, drinks Sprite and tried to joke around with us. I remembered once I woke in the middle of the night and heard the TV was still on. So I went down to turn it off, but Bambang was there on the couch, the remote beside him, staring into the TV screen attentively at David Letterman. His face was serious as always, which was why we never got his jokes.

Another day, I went into the toilet and saw him there, drinking from the toilet bowl. Bambang liked to lick our fingers, and drinking from the toilet bowl seems inappropriately human, so I taught him to drink from the pipe water instead. I told him sometimes people drink from the pipe water too, so he agreed to change his habits. When he knew that humans either go to work or school, Bambang decided to become a house guard. When we all went for lectures, he would sit in front of the door, protecting the house from thieves until we return. I think he liked his job very much, and did it well too. So we'd pay him with more Friskies. Each day, Bambang grew fatter and fatter, which offered him a second job: working as a pillow. Bambang didn't mind even when the heavy weighted Faizul Ramli used him as a pillow.

But now Bambang is gone. Nobody knows where he went to. Nooraishah Saadon told me that it is a common thing for a male cat to disappear for awhile to fight with other male cats, expanding their territory. But I think Bambang is smarter than that. I believe his humanlike instincts brought him to places humans go: studying overseas, joining the army, or simply having a family

Bambang