PART III: "Forever and Ever"
It was Sunday—the laziest day of the week. Waking up at 9, I strolled past my front balcony, heading straight to the kitchen for breakfast. Then, I opened my computer to work on my project.
The clock struck twelve. As I prepared for a bath, I felt something queer. Did I forget to do something? I wondered while opening the door to the balcony.
"Oops! How could I forget this?" I mumbled.
I placed the bananas on the cupboard behind which the civet stayed.
Yes, it has been quite a few years. It grew older, and I grew up.
I really grew up. Actually, that’s misleading. Nothing much changed about me—I just became mature enough to realize what reality is. I grew from a child eager to make friends, to a teenager traumatized by friendship, to a mature person afraid to make friends.
Have any of you ever experienced living in an environment, studying in a school with your agemates, and realizing that no one—absolutely no one—thinks like you? No one understands your sense of "friendship." No one understands your definition of "loyalty." No one understands your idea of "happiness." At that point, you may feel you are innocent. And yes, I admit I was innocent, and I want to remain unchanged for my entire life.
Sometimes you will be framed. And then you may call yourself a fool, but you are not. You are just not experienced enough to understand who deserves your friendship. Friendship requires trust. Trust demands loyalty, and—
LOYALTY is an EXPENSIVE thing that you cannot expect from CHEAP people.
Hence, now I’m afraid—maybe I won’t be able to distinguish the rich from the cheap. It requires skill to distinguish a diamond from moissanite. It requires even more skill to identify a rich heart from rich apparel.
Hence, now, I am truly petrified—of friendship... with narcissists.
But don’t think I’m devoid of friendship. I do have friends, and I’m genuinely happy with them.
I’m proud to say that I’m an animal lover. I love all animals. To me, they are my best friends. Whenever I see them, I feel an eternal, inseparable bond existing between us—something rare, beyond profit, beyond ulterior motives, beyond any conditions—so natural, so resolute.
As I was placing the civet’s food, it came out, only to stare at me for a few obsessed moments. Earlier, it was introverted—it restrained itself from appearing in front of me, yet secretly watched me. That’s hypocrisy, though. But I loved how it changed. Seeing its change, I asked:
"It has been so many years, and still you haven’t answered me."
It looked at me cluelessly.
"What? Did you ever answer me whether you want to be my friend or not?"
It picked up its food and took a bite.
I smirked and walked away.
At this point, both of us knew the answer to the question. I reminisced about our sweet memories—the time when our eyes first met, that dining table incident which still gives me goosebumps, and how I developed an unlikely fascination for a civet cat, a wild, supposedly nasty species, even though I hated cats.
Oh, there’s something I must tell you all. Civet cats are not cats. Yes, the scientific name of the house cat is Felis catus. Thus, all cats are generally part of the Felis genus, although their species may differ, like Felis chaus (Jungle cat) or Felis bieti (Chinese Mountain cat). But civets are not one of them. Civets belong to the family Viverridae, and they don’t form a monophyletic group.
In West Bengal, we generally find Paradoxurus hermaphroditus (Common Palm Civet) or Viverricula indica (Small Indian Civet). And believe me, I found this out on the last day of my Class 10 board exams—coincidentally, the day I studied biology for the final time for exam—since I pursued Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Computer Science as my main subjects in Class 11.
So my fascination wasn’t that unlikely, as it’s really not a cat. I know it may sound melodramatic and cheesy; it may even resemble a mistaken identity plot. It might seem like an attempt to romanticize the idea—love is all perfect and ideal—even though the shape of Earth isn’t—but for God’s sake, believe me, I didn’t make it up for the story. It’s damn true.
Anyway, aren’t you eager to know the answer to the question from earlier? Well, it was—
