Spoiler :

Sorry for the shortness of the chapter, don't worry most of them won't be this short. I did this mainly because RF is at 24 WMAW is at 14 and now this one is at 4! Aren't patterns nice? Now when I update them all at the same time each one will be ahead of the one below it by ten chapters :)

Cats

(Sakura)

The first thing I learned from my sister actually wasn’t how to have fun, though I was having so much fun I didn’t realize it until much later after much reflection. No the first thing I learned was that my point of view was actually very narrow. Why had I given up on having fun in the first place? Wasn’t it because I had thought I had done all the activities possible while on convalescence?

Why had I never tried any experiences outside the few things that I participated in? Wasn’t it because once I found a few things that I at the very least didn’t dislike, I never felt the need to see if there was any other possibilities?

Furthermore and most importantly why had I so looked down on my sister in past, and why had we never done anything together?

Wasn’t it because I had always been taught by my parents and told by the rest of my family, that any activities that were nonphysical and indoors were boring, and because she didn’t like participating in the vigorous activities that we loved, she was a boring ‘party pooper’ that never experienced any enjoyment or fun?

It was quite obvious once I added one and one together and came up with two. I was quite limited in my past thinking. I was ignorant to the point that once enlightened I had to look at my past self as someone with a major disability.

I squirmed in embarrassment to think of all the times in the past where I had thought myself so open minded and receptive (at least compared to the majority of others) and I turned red whenever I recall my smug sense of superiority.

Most significantly I learned through my ‘lessons’ that while my past ways of thinking and favored activities weren’t invalid, they were also extremely far from being the only valid ones existing. They weren’t even the tip of their respective iceberg.

I am grateful for my ability to adapt, it is one of things I like most about myself. Though I had indeed been quite boxed in and naïve, it didn’t hold me back from letting myself experience new things. While I regretted most deeply later that I hadn’t experienced such an awaking sooner, I often comforted myself with the thought that at least I hadn’t tossed my opportunity aside and continued to live obliviously. In fact I had even grabbed on to this new chance eagerly and with both hands .

Ramona started her ‘education’ by taking out her laptop and logging on to a video hosting website that I had only heard of in passing before. She then asked me to say the first word that pops into my head.

I glanced around the room, my head blank, finally I noticed a get well card that was sitting at the top of a little pile of similar gifts that were on top of my bedside table. On it , a little cat was barely clinging to the end of a tree branch that was sinking a bit under its weight, the words ‘Hang in there’ floated above the sad scene in big cheery letters.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“…cat?” I said with not a little trepidation.

“Felineiii? Oh that’s perfect!”

she grinned at me widely, baring a mouth full of crooked teeth, briefly to my view.

She typed the word ‘cat’ in the search engine and I carefully watched as she hit enter. After a few seconds of loading time, the results appeared. I was actually surprised when I saw the number of available videos. Who knew there existed millions of videos about those little fur balls, that our family had never had in the past because of our brother’s allergies?

My sister didn’t seemed phased at all however she, just slowly scrolled down the page while muttering.

“Which one seems most fun...? Hmmm…I know! let’s try that one!”   She clicked on one of many options and I watched as the show started.

If I had to summarize the events that followed I would say that we had a cat video marathon, followed by a cat binge, and finishing with a splurge of watching a particular silly music video, that for some reason, both of us found it hilarious, that we had it on repeat about a hundred times.

I am a bit embarrassed to admit this, but we watched cat videos until late at night, and by the time a nurse came to ‘gently’ drag my sister away, visiting hours were completely over and I hadn’t even thought about let alone touched my homework.

The next day, I was much less surprised when she came again. This time we had changed our video marathon from cats to dogs, and then the next day to even more exotic pets. After we got bored of animals we would play the random word game or occasionally when in an unimaginative mood we would check the recommended list to see if anything stood out.

I slowly started to really relax and came to look forward to and even expect her visits.

For almost a month she came almost every day, and the few times she wasn’t there the explanation she gave me was usually homework, to my chagrin, I had become so entrapped in our time wasting pursuits that homework which had been so important and something’s entertaining for me before became a boring low priority.

So mustering up my weakened industriousness, I insisted on a schedule, we would only watch the videos for the latter half of her visits, the rest of the time, I would do homework. She did argue against me briefly at first saying such things as ‘this is a vacation’ but she didn’t put much strength to it.

I had learned something about my sister since I had spent more time with her, those constant complains that I had found so depressing and annoying in the past were usually mostly just talk, with no real bite to them, the best way to get her to shut up or change her negativity, was to agree with her, or better yet find something in her words that had flawed logic or was debatable and then ask her to elaborate what she meant by that.

I had come to understand her much better, but it didn’t come about because of my own ability.