Welcome to Issue 15 of Zooscape!
One year on my birthday, the devilishly smart orange tabby who was my best friend during childhood managed to sneak a dead bird into the house. He left it in front of my bedroom door as an offering.
This is part of the modern mythology of cats — they kill small birds and rodents, especially mice, and bring them to their people as offerings. Cats value dead mice, so that’s what they offer as gifts. From a cat’s perspective, a dead mouse is the best possible gift you can get. Cats, mice, mythology.
I have always related heavily to cats. In the language of the furry fandom, I suppose, my fursona is a cat. There’s no barrier to claiming a fursona. If you imagine some kind of animal version of yourself — go ahead; close your eyes; pick an animal, and do it, real quick, right now — then there you go. That’s your fursona. Or one of them anyway. You can have as many as you want. You can get really serious about them and commission art or even a fursuit to wear. You can write a story about your life as that animal. Or you can just daydream fitfully about having tabby striped fur and lazing in the sun all day. The furry fandom is a really flexible place that way.
At any rate, this year in anticipation of my birthday, I bring the readers of the world a collection of stories about cats, mice, and mythology. These are the things I value. This is my dead mouse. Maybe there are some other cats out there who will value it too.
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The Best Way to Procure Breakfast by Dana Vickerson
The Sacrificial Mouse by Divyasri Krishnan
Cat and Mouse by Gabriel Robinson
The Analogue Cat by Alice “Huskyteer” Dryden
Ghosts by Searska GreyRaven
What They Serve in Valhalla by David Sklar
Drakopegasus by Jack Adam
Mooncalf by Anna Madden
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