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       the apocrypha of cat - the desert
       September 06th, 2019
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       It is said that before the desert, there was no cat.
       
       It is also said that before cat, there was no desert.
       
       What is known is that when cat left the desert he left a piece of
       himself behind and took something different in its place. For
       before the desert was a time when cat wore colors, when he sang
       karaoke, and most importantly, when he had hair.
       
       The sages speak of a time before myth and before legend when the
       world held its breath waiting for a story to begin and set all in
       motion. In some traditions this began with a Word, or a song that
       can be heard in the Vedas, but the true devotee knows the truth.
       The story began with a baby doll crying.
       
       Cat found the doll at the edge of the great expanse stretching
       endlessly beyond horizon covered in scrub brush and dust devils.
       Low in the sky, the sun was quickly fleeing the heat of the day.
       The baby cried once, twice, and a third time as a true harbinger.
       In that aged voice-box a clarion rang from the heavens and opened
       cat's eyes to Truth, such as needs capitalization and archaic
       meter.
       
       He lifted the baby in his arms with tender care and when he looked
       down again his shoes had become Doc Martens. He knew these boots
       were meant for walking, and that's just what he did as they
       carried him deeper into the void. A voice then spoke, and cat knew
       it to be his own though it carried no identifiable accent. It had
       the cadence of an American and the diction of an Aussie but
       scrambled deep in the bowels of bargain-bin Anime and food trucks.
       The words themselves sounded like carnies trying their best to
       hide their shame on a home visit for Christmas. It was glorious
       and held the true power that can only be found in softness.
       
       When cat asked the wind, "Why do I sound like this?" The wind
       responded with a susurrus more brutal and jagged than cat's own
       voice. In that moment the wind relented knowing that cat had
       become as wind himself. And so he drifted forward further into the
       desert.
       
       In the desert he found many things. Boredom was chief amongst his
       discoveries, though. His ennui bore a hole into the Earth,
       hallowing it out and filling it with monsters and myth. It
       expanded to the heavens and cast aliens from the sky raining down
       across time. It filled our oceans and created Seaquest DSV, which
       it is said nobody watched, ever. Finally his boredom brought him
       back to the baby with it's soft coos and stuttered cries. In that
       beatific countenance he saw the purity of purpose of the crafted
       doll and it spoke a second Truth. Forever would he seek such
       perfection in all things that crossed his gaze.
       
       But his quest for beauty was at odds with the desert, for the only
       beauty of the desert is in its solitude. While cat remained it
       could never be itself. To love a thing and to crave for it such
       beauty as he did, cat knew he had to leave.
       
       And so, with the pure will of his element, he breathed outward
       across the landscape and painted it with all his colors. The pinks
       and fuchsias washed across the sky and land. The deep blues of his
       eyes filled the sky. But green, which he always had avoided in his
       youth, would not come from him. And so the desert would hold its
       purity and its beauty for all time while cat was left with only
       darkness to shroud himself.
       
       In Doc Martens he walked forth and it is whispered that he left
       three secrets behind in the vastness. The first was a fax number
       of unknown purpose. The second was a horde of unused raspberry
       pis. And the third was the greatest mix tape of all time.
       
       These days cat wanders the Earth in search of beauty and truth
       while battling those forces diametrically opposed. Chiefly among
       these is Salesforce, which cat has made his personal dragon to
       slay.
       
       One day cat may return to the desert and teach it the secrets he
       has learned. It is said you can find hints of these secrets buried
       underground in the depths of his latest baby, if you know where to
       look.
       
       Remember what cat does for us each and every day and give thanks.
       
 (DIR) cat