It starts with a ball of yarn. I swipe at it; once, twice, three times. It swings back and forth before exploding into a super nova and the room around me goes from a drab living room into a majestic cosmos. Stars twinkle, planets rotate and all around is darkness interrupted by pin pricks of light.

I land on the moon. The grey sand is soft beneath my paws as I dig into it. It is an orbiting sand box so massive that it controls the tides and it must be cleaned by the scooper of god almighty. I back up, swish my tail and take a running leap off the moon and toward the green and blue pearl of the Milky Way: Earth. Home. I float in the space between, thinking of love’s found and love’s lost.

As I enter the atmosphere, I make a triangle with my paws to direct me over Asia then Europe. The pads of my paws get warmer and warmer as I approach terminal velocity rocketing over the Atlantic Ocean, a trail of sonic booms in my wake. As I approach the American continent, I am a ball of light; both beautiful and terrible to behold.

I land at the base of Niagara Falls, but it is not water that rushes down at thousands of gallons a second. It is milk that sloshes over the precipice; an endless fountain of cream that thunderously crashes into the rocks below. I lap at it until I have my fill.

The day is bright and the sky is clear. I leap again. This time I glide slowly, ever so slowly, over the countryside; small towns and hamlets, forgotten by the elites and the snobs. I will tell them what’s what when I make it to the big apple.

I cavort and caper around Central Park, swiping at geese and pigeons as they erupt into the sky; an explosion of feathers and darkness clouding the air. I hate them so. I leap again; a short jump to the Statue of Liberty where I lie on the green feet and swish my tail; thinking my thoughts and gazing lazily at the city that never sleeps.

I hear a noise and instantly snap out of my stupor. Millions of years of feline evolution makes me hyper vigilant as I survey the land to the west. California? Nay. It is closer than that? Minneapolis? Not on your life. I stand, crushing a Korean American selling hot dogs on the island, and release myself from the imprisoning bonds of gravity as I soar once more into the heavens.

As I hurdled through the troposphere, I was struck by a thought: What if the object I am approaching was not meant for man nor cat to come into contact with? What if I am turned to stone? Is that what I deserve for my trespasses? I wonder.

When I land in Death Valley, I relieve myself on a cactus. What is the desert if not a giant box of kitty litter, and what am I, if not a giant cat? I see in my periphery a shadow. It approaches, silently, stealth fully. It barks. It barks again and I hiss at it. We are making eye contact. My fur stands on edge and my claws extend. This cur shall not get the best of me!

It bounds toward me, sticks out its mighty tongue and licks the top of my head. Point, dog. I run away as it chases after me yipping like a five hundred ton puppy. I jump into the air as it catches me for another lick and I push off its wet nose.

I rise higher and higher until the air is thin and open my eyes with shock and horror as a commercial airline comes careening toward me. It is United Flight 84 and I believe it originated out of Portland with a layover at a small airport near Billings, Montana.

I bank hard to my left and they do the same in the opposite direction and the once inevitably, (some would say preordained), collision was averted. I heard little Julia in economy class tell her aunt that I was what she wanted for Chanukah this year. Oy-vey. I wouldn’t even fit under the Menorah!

The change in direction proved too hard to compensate for and I went plummeting toward San Francisco. I crashed into the San Francisco Bay, sending up a geyser of water that was 100,000 liters, if it were gauged by the international standard of measurement.

I…HATE…WATER! I climbed onto the pier and my body spasmed and convulsed wildly as I tried to dry myself. What to do when there are no towels big enough? I could return to the desert, but that accursed mongrel would be lying in wait. I could leave the greatest nation on Earth to the war torn Middle East, (where a cat would be treated as a god by the indigenous people), but at what cost?

I leapt again and landed in the heart land, a trail of large salt water droplets following me cross country. I rolled in the wheat field and dried myself. Ezekiel Hendrickson is the farmer ‘round these parts and doesn’t take kindly to a monstrous space cat rolling around in his fields. “Get outta here, you darn cat!” he shouted and then started throwing pebbles at my patoot.

I jumped straight up. Past the stratosphere and into space. From there I passed the moon and Mars, Jupiter, Neptune and the rest. I smiled thinking of my K-9 visitor in the desert when I soared past Pluto, the dwarf planet.

Stars flashed as I continued through the galaxy. Some became bigger, some became smaller, but they all coalesced into an elegant tapestry. A 3-Demensional work of art cobbled together by a force to infinite to imagine, but so simple it could be found in the laughter of a child. I looked upon the galaxy and those around them and wept, for I had no more worlds left to conquer.

I opened my eyes and found myself wedged up against the foot of the couch. I stretched my legs as far as they could go and gave a mighty yawn. I licked my front paw and rubbed it against my forehead. Was it all a dream? If it was then it was beautiful. I see a small object just within reach under the couch. I swipe at it, once, twice, three times. I knock it into the open. It is little Julia’s dreidel. It is made out of clay.