A woman who chose a cat

Would you cancel your marriage because a cat you dote on goes missing? It is a story in a short fiction “A House without a Terrace” by Cho Nam-ju.

A couple in the fiction even printed invitations to their wedding. A woman living with a cat suggests her fiancé to lease a house with a terrace because she wants to show her cat raindrops on the window. But an accident occurs while the couple attaches an address to their wedding invitations. The cat goes out of the house through the open door.

The woman calls the police. It is of no use, but she is desperate. The couple put up flyers to find the cat, but the cat is nowhere to be found. The woman thinks hell is the world without her cat. Her fiancé sends out wedding invitations for her. Even though she finds it out later and thanks him, she does not appreciate it deep down in her mind. She even thinks that it is inconsiderate as she was so traumatized that she did not even remember what she did after losing her cat. For her, the cat was her family rather than a pet. And she lost her family, which is why her marriage is not a priority. She cancels the house leasing and even her marriage in the end. She finds her cat a month later, but the relationship with her fiancé is just the past.

Most would not understand her decision. But if the world turns into hell because she lost her cat, the priority would have been her recovery from the trauma. It is not an issue of right or wrong. The fiction persuades readers that relationships with species other than humans are equally important and wounds from those relationships should not be neglected.