Where do cats go when they are missing?

• Published date: 10 February 2023
• Publication title: Business Mirror

'Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.' -Garrison Keillor

But Innova has a purpose, a function. His patron knew when the cat went missing that Innova was half (or maybe a bit less?) of the heart of his bookshop.

Innova arrived at Savage Mind when the place had not been known yet as the creative hub of the region. It was a store with books that were meant to be bought and read. The owner did not need a magic charm to keep the project going; he was only satisfying his urge to do something with his love of literature, at the core of which were the two acts of writing and reading what has been written.

Then Innova came. Found under an Innova car, not pressed but comfortable in the darkness and warmth the vehicle provided, he was brought to the bookstore.

As a kitten, Innova's growth was monitored by people who came to the bookstore, readers and non-readers alike. This coterie of admirers included those who did not read but loved posing against shelves stacked up with books or having their photographs taken while holding or perusing a book. For the sincere ones, meaning those who truly loved cats, holding Innova was the apotheosis of having one's presence memorialized in a thinking space.

But then, Innova went missing last year. He was nowhere to be found as the chill of the last days of the year began to be felt in this city historians love to call 'ancient'. He was not the only animal companion that got lost. Rawit, a slender cat with fur as white as snow, also vanished. Okay, there is no snow in our regular collective experience but isn't it kinda cute, albeit silly, to describe something whose whiteness is that of an element absent in our culture?

For the uninitiated in the Bikolanoness of things, Rawit was part of a tandem of white kittens conscripted to serve as mascots for the then already-popular bookstore; the other partner was named Dawit. Together, they were Rawit-Dawit, a name writers attribute to what is believed to be the indigenous form of Bikol poetry. Contentious, exegetical.

As Rawit was a traditionally lovely cat, a Hallmark-greeting-card cat, even a Sanrio cat, it was easy to admit that he was kidnapped-catnapped-for his physical allure. Saddened as the supporters and sympathizers of Savage Mind bookstore, they believed the white cat would be cared for. Sipping tea and coffee, the owner of the bookshop and his friends embraced the loss and were resigned to the scenario of Rawit, bejeweled with an expensive...