I’ll call you “Big Bowl,” okay?
The spoon is missing.
The spoon is my cat.
His surname is Guanxi, and his name is Spoon. He’s a not-so-pure Russian Blue cat, male, and his personality is just like his name—commonplace, smooth, and fitting. Our relationship is also like his name; it seems unimportant, but in fact, we have deeply relied on each other.
This cat, whom I’ve raised for more than four years, suddenly disappeared one day from my home.
I don’t know where he went. Perhaps he slipped out quietly when I opened the door. My home is on a high floor, and when he went missing, the windows were closed tight; he could only have left through the door. But there are eight elevators, and each floor has fifty households—how can I find him?
Sighing, I posted missing cat notices. I had seen them countless times before; I never thought I’d be the one putting them up.
I remember the last time I took Spoon outdoors was two years ago when I moved. I left him at the old place and only brought him to the new home after everything was packed up. On the way, he was silent in my arms; by then, he was already four. He clung tightly to my sweater. It was winter, and the bare branches were devoid of life, everything gray. I walked with him under a bridge; not far away, there were several large concrete pipes at a construction site.
As a child, those massive concrete pipes symbolized “wanderlust” for me. I longed to run away from home—not as a challenge to parental authority, but merely as a romantic fantasy, much like when I was younger, I would think of Narnia when I saw a wardrobe.
I wonder if Spoon felt the same in my embrace, his little mouth pressed shut, his round eyes reflecting fear as he looked around. I can’t guess what he’s thinking, nor have I ever tried to; I just didn’t think to before.
After moving into the new home, Spoon quickly adapted. He would sit on the windowsill looking down, and I’d look too. The view was nice; outside the north window, there was a river and a bridge, the traffic lights blinking red and green, and I found the long lines of cars amusing.
From the south window, I could see a small garden below, planted with pine trees, where people often brought their large dogs to play on the lawn.
And there Spoon would sit, gazing down.
Two years passed just like that in the new home.
Looking back, Spoon never seemed to have any intention of leaving.
Every day after work, during the time it took to make tea, I would scoop rice first, and then pour cat food into his bowl. While he ate, I’d have my meal too, usually finishing a bit before him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to feed him right away; I had heard that if a cat eats before you, it thinks of you as a guest in the house.
I was merely maintaining my identity as his owner.
Would he give me something to eat if he thought I was a guest?
Life went on smoothly. I’d sleep with him snuggled beside me. He’d peek at me when I was on the phone, and every night at 10:30 he would have his running spree, waking me up at 6:40 in the morning. If I forgot to give him water, he would bat at my legs and try to ambush me on the stairs—these were Spoon’s tricks, familiar to me.
When did he go missing?
I fell into deep thought again.
Maybe it’s been a few days.
Which day was it? At what hour? What reason did he have for going out?
I couldn’t figure it out at all.
Looking outside, the river had frozen over.
As I gazed into the corners of my room, I noticed all the places Spoon used to frequent.
I realized I rarely paid attention to this house; to me, many things seemed almost non-existent.
I began checking the stairwell corners, where Spoon often sat.
The windowsill, on the right side—he never went to the left side.
On the radiator, by the pillow, at the security door, on the bookshelf, even inside the microwave.
Of course, none of those places contained Spoon anymore.
Not even in the litter box.
Spoon had left, a living, breathing cat was gone—this was painfully obvious.
I focused my gaze on Spoon’s bed.
It was a coral fleece bed with a top cover and railing, yellow, meant to simulate a palace.
I bought it because I thought it would be funny to see Spoon sitting inside.
Spoon never liked that bed. He rarely lay in it, only retreating there for a moment when strangers came over, out of fear for his safety.
I began to observe the bed more closely. It was yellow and fluffy, and I noticed it was covered in a lot of cat fur.
At first, I thought it was Spoon’s fur. I grabbed a handful; there was so much. When did Spoon rub so much fur on it?
When I looked at it again two weeks later, the missing cat notices had yielded no results; no one had called, no one claimed to have seen Spoon.
Two weeks later, there was even more cat fur on that bed.
How strange. I sat on the sofa and saw it, wanting to tidy it up, but then I thought, let it be.
Cat fur on the cat bed wasn’t a big deal; after all, the cat was gone, and other places were slowly returning to cleanliness.
My dark clothes no longer bore cat hair. I hadn’t swept the floor in days, and there was no cat fur to be found.
Another ten days passed.
When I looked at the cat bed again, my goodness!
Tabby fur! I could bet it was tabby fur.
But my Spoon—he was gray, with a bit of Russian Blue blood in him, for heaven’s sake!
A thick layer of tabby fur covered the entire cat bed. I was astonished and stood up.
From that day on, I stood half a step away from this cat bed each day, observing it.
It seemed to take on more and more of a feline form each day.
While eating, I noticed it had developed the outline of ears; when I was cleaning the bowls, ear tips started to emerge.
While washing dishes, the tips of the ears had grown a layer of white fur covering the tabby beneath it; while sweeping, the back legs had almost formed, curled and sitting.
Before going to bed, the front legs resembled those of a farmer’s cat. At midnight, when I went to the bathroom, I noticed its tail had taken shape.
Finally, one morning, on the 134th day of searching for Spoon with no results, this cat bed transformed into a cat.
The cat that had emerged from the bed stood up. Its hind legs were nicely developed, and its front legs were good too. Its eyes sparkled with life, and its whiskers were distinctly visible. It came over to rub against me, its expression familiar, just like an old cat I had raised.
Feeling its warm fur beneath my hand, the familiar purring sound was indistinguishable from that of a real cat. I easily accepted it, thanks to the gradual buildup of cat fur on the bed that had prepared me.
I softly called to it, and it wagged its tail in response. I patted my lap, and it comfortably settled down.
Just like that, I had my next cat. I called him:
“Is ‘Big Bowl’ a good name for you?”
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
