April 20th, 2003 - 6:09 p.m.

Masago and Dormed'ka.

Dormed'ka was a skittish and docile black panther. His size, intelligence, ferocity and furious glance long drained out of his blood from domestication.

His feline stomach yearned for fish, and he would search far and wide to satisfy the homeostasis.

But the back of his ears and the base of his tail were in love with the firm fingertips of a little girl, so he never strayed far or for too long least the girl would grow her own furry ears and flickering tail and no longer wait for him to call.

On one sunny but fruitless day, Dormed'ka could not find his dinner anywhere. He searched behind trees and under rocks. Dug small burrows in the ground. Peered into caves and questioned the waterfall.

Tired and hungry, he went to the little girl's house and sat in the garden, hoping the sight of pretty flowers and the sun warming his pelt would quiet his belly.

The little girl was in the garden already, picnicking on a box of masago chirashi.

The panther in Dormed'ka hated to be fed, but this was one of those moments in which hunger overruled. Purring, as was his custom, he sauntered over to the little girl and pawed at her knee, eyes pointedly fixated on the masago picnic.

The girl happily indulged her part-time pet, even though masago was one of her favourite forms of sustenance.

With a fast gulp, the remaining spoonful of the orange translucent pearls disappeared down Dormed'ka's gullet. The mouthful only served to fortify his internal protests and he walked off ungratefully (since the girl had no more to share) to pacify the unrelenting intestinal objections.

Dormed'ka decided to ask the waterfall again for fish, and pattered his way to its direction.

All of a sudden, a most curious thirst overtook Dormed'ka, and he stopped to drink from a puddle. His pink tongue about to dip into the water, an odd squirming sensation filled his throat. And then, of all surprising things, a fish fell out of his mouth and into the puddle, shaking its head in astonishment and dancing happily in the water.

You see, the little girl was a magical thing, and only ever ate enchanted food. She was always careful to crunch each egg between her teeth to avoid the masago coming to life in her belly. But Dormed'ka had been direly hungry, and had simply swallowed his share of masago whole.

"Where are the rest of my brothers and sisters?" the new born fish asked the bewildered Dormed'ka.

Before Dormed'ka could answer, that curious thirst overtook him again, with an even stronger odd feeling in his throat. He bent down for a drink, and once again, as his tongue was about to kiss the surface of the puddle, six and thirty more fish landed with a plop in the water.

The thirty seven fish greeted each other with polite how-do-you-dos, as fish often do when freshly born. As this society was performing its curtsies and bows, Dormed'ka hatched a devious plot to sate his hunger.

The first born fish, being the smartest, caught the predator's glint in the feline eyes, and instantly spoke up, pleading the petit panther not to eat them all.

Dormed'ka's ears were deafened by hunger and consumed the brothers and sisters while the first born darted Dormed'ka's paws and attempted to present his treaty under duress. "If you leave some of us," the fish breathlessly entreated, "dig us a pond, and we can live here and you can always have..."

The voice was broken off with teeth and a satisfied kitty grin.

His belly full, and the night drawing close, Dormed'ka made himself a bed of leaves and the moon light blanketed him.

In the morning, he yawned and stretched his claws. Licked the dew off of his whiskers.

He dozily thought of going to the little girl again for more masago, because the fish were delightful to the palate. Lazily, he got up to start his trek, and after several hours of walking, Dormed'ka realized he had lost his way.

"No masago?" he thought, and a tear rolled down his furry cheek, pestering his whiskers.

All the other details of Dormed'ka's search are not important, but he is wandering still, in his greedy search for masago and fish. He should have listened to the first of the thirty seven fish.

N.

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