Milkomeda
🦋
“Jesus Christ, what’s that on your belly!?”
Yet again I was roused from sleep before my alarm had a chance to sound. To make matters worse, this time a thunderous shout had brutally shattered my sweet dream where I was about to kiss my idol, Donna Summer.
I opened my eyes to the windowpane that was no longer tinted in darkness, now lit by the flooding rays of morning sun that were splashing warmth all throughout my room and baring a world outside drenched in hues. The kitten, probably rattled by the same booming sound, was crouched beside me, its head lowered and tail tucked tightly against its body.
“Good morning,” I greeted the source of the jarring yell with a yawn and a brisk rub of my drowsy eyes, while trying my best to act like it was a perfectly normal morning, despite the obvious presence of the tiny kitten sitting right next to me on my bed.
The disrupter of my hot-stuff dream wasn’t having it. “Spare me the greeting, just explain to me why there’s a tiny kitten sitting right next to you on your bed.”
“Well.. Mom, it, uh, it seems someone left this little one outside our house during the night,” I replied, struggling to maintain my calm.
“So? Again, why’s it in your bed?” Mom demanded, her voice now tinged with irritation.
“Um.. I didn’t want the poor thing to freeze,” I tried to explain. “I mean, it was pretty nippy outsi—”
“Enough,” she cut me off. “I don’t want to hear another word. All I want is for you to put that stray back outside immediately!”
Mom’s voice, usually sweet and soothing, now throbbed with a sharp agitation that pierced the morning quiet. And her genial face had twisted into an unkind scowl. It felt as though I was speaking to a complete stranger, and a rather ill-mannered one at that.
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Perhaps I shouldn’t have been overly surprised by Mom’s visceral reaction to the kitten. You see, in the Korea of her youth, the notion of keeping animals indoors was virtually unheard of, a far cry from what is now a common practice in Korea today. In fact, many folks back then even held a superstition that harboring an animal inside one’s home would bring bad luck. Despite our family’s move to a country where the practice of keeping companion animals indoors was widely accepted, the old beliefs ingrained from her past proved too resilient to simply fade away.
“But Mom, it’s cold outside. This little guy’s just a baby. Can I please keep thi—”
“Out of the question, absolutely not!” She cut me off again. “Listen carefully and make certain to remember what I’m about to tell you: no matter what, as long as I’m alive and well, no animal will be allowed in this house, ever!
“Look, I have nothing against animals,” Mom continued, “but I was raised to believe that dogs, cats, and rabbits belong outside, not in the house. I have no intention of changing my mind anytime soon, so let’s end this conversation right here.”
I clasped my hands together in a pleading gesture, my voice sinking into a tone of desperation, “Mom, can’t you show a little compassion for this helpless kitten?”
With a dismissive sneer, she retorted, “How about showing some compassion for your mother, huh? Why can’t you be a darling for once and do as you’re told?”
“Mom, I promise I’ll be as good as gold from now on if you’d just let me keep the kitten.”
“That’s enough! You just don’t know when to quit, do you? Let me make it crystal clear: nothing you say will change my mind,” she snapped, her tone as unyielding as the floor she stood on.
Cosmologists predict that in about 4.5 billion years from now, our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy will begin a cosmic dance, colliding and merging over the span of a billion years. This grand union is expected to create a massive elliptical galaxy, already named “Milkomeda.” But unlike these two celestial bodies destined to find a middle ground, Mom and I didn’t seem to have a snowball’s chance in hell of finding our own, even if we were to argue till the birth of Milkomeda.
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“Okay, enough talk. Mom, no matter how much you’re against it, there’s no way I’m kicking out this poor little kitty. So, how about we just cut to the chase and settle our dispute through the family vote?”
As luck would have it, Mom, the de facto family honcho, had implemented a rule two years prior; it stated that anytime a conflict involving two or more family members arose, we’d resolve it by voting. Her intention was to prevent her children from engaging in quarrels that could needlessly fester for days. Little did she know that her well-intended idea would end up backfiring on her. Mom’s face hardened even further, and you could almost see steam coming out of her ears.
“Are you serious?” she huffed, shaking her head in disbelief. “You do realize that our yearly trip to Helen is today, don’t you? You would risk delaying it with this…this family vote?”
“I didn’t want it to come to this, Mom, but you haven’t left me any other choice. This is my proposal: if I win, the kitten stays with me, in the house,” I shot back defiantly, trying to sound as tough as I could. “Do we have a deal?”
A rush of bravado ballooned within me as I waited for Mom’s response. Instead of an answer, though, I got a death glare, her eyes boring into mine, seeming ready to shoot lasers.
“So, that’s how it’s gonna be?” she seethed. “You’d turn against your own mother over a cat, huh? Fine, I’m in, but you’ve forced me to take the gloves off now.
“Here’s my counterproposal: the minute you lose this vote, and lose you shall, you toss that stray into those woods over there. Not tomorrow, not five minutes later, but as soon as the result is out! Do you accept?”
Her chilling words froze me in place, my newfound bravado deflating at once. The terms were brutally clear: if I lost, I’d be forced to leave the kitten in the dense, two-acre woodland across the street, a place that looked dark and eerie even in broad daylight.
Perhaps Mom had spoken in the heat of the moment, yet there was a good chance she’d make me do it if she won. After all, I, a mere underling, had dared to challenge the undisputed honcho of our little domestic kingdom, which was inhabited by Mom, Dad (who played second fiddle to Mom), Hyung (a Korean word meaning “older brother”), myself, and two younger sisters.
The consequence of losing the vote was enormous, but accepting her proposal was the only route I had if I entertained the tiniest hope of keeping the tiny kitten. Just then, at long last, the alarm loudly went off, snapping me back from the momentary distraction.
“Of course, I accept,” I managed to respond, somehow maintaining a placid tone even as my nerves shook like tree leaves on a gusty day.
“Mom, you know what, we may have been best friends until now, but I want you to understand that I won’t be holding back either. I intend to win, no matter what it takes.”
“We’ll see about that,” Mom tersely shot back before storming off. But in the sudden silence that followed her exit, Mom’s terrifying counterproposal continued to ring in my ears.