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Part I

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the best feline of them all?"

Magda the Forest Cat spoke oft repeated and favorite words in the whole-wide universe out loud. However, she said them to her pocket mirror which she carried with her everywhere now.

"Perhaps the phrase needs some adjusting," she said to her inner partner Cosmic Magda. Also formerly known as Mirror Magda.

You see, Magda the Forest Cat had the most peculiar and enriching of experiences in her recent history. Much to her surprise, she stumbled upon the deeper working of the universe. Namely, her "idealized other," her alter ego. Her -- what we will call - her supra-ordinate personality. Not sub-personality, the split-off tiny personalities under own, but the total personality that governed Magda's entire being.

Different cultures call this experience, or set of experiences, different things: some say "God," "the gods," "higher power," "divine intelligence," "spirit of the universe," "cthulhu." The list goes on and on really...

The point was that Magda was no longer alone in life but carried with her an inner presence that gave her guidance and helped her create purpose. It was on the eve of a new journey, after this set of circumstances that Magda was faced with a challenge from her Other.

"I have a task I want you to complete," Cosmic Magda told her corporeal counterpart.

"A task?..."

"Well, more of a bit of a training session," she added.

"Training session!?" Magda's voice began to waiver and escalate in pitch.

"What are you trying to say!? Meoww." Magda commented. "That I'm not purrrfect?" The Forest Cat could feel the sheath of her claws beginning to retract, ready for a fight.

For you see, Magda the Forest Cat was unabashedly a narcissist.

In Magda's worldview she was a queen, pedigree, and everyone else was just dirt below her pampered paws. That is, to say that Magda was not perfect was an affront to her sense of identity; and, as anyone who has yet find inner peace can tell you, attacking one's sense of identity leads to sooner than later leads to combat -- perceptions are misperceived, assumptions are made, and the animal instincts of the wild take over.

Cosmic Magda did not reply.

Magda began the work of calming herself down and replied: "If this is you starting a fight. I don't want to participate..."

While Magda was indeed burdened with the character structure of narcissism she had also through recent events learned the value of humility. An unintended spiritual lesson.

"Well?" Cosmic Magda echoed from within the pocket mirror.

"Well what!?"

"Well are you going to do it?" Cosmic Magda said beginning to get annoyed.

After a short silence, Magda the Forest Cat burst out: "I'm busy!"

Veins began to bulge around Cosmic Magda's feline hair. For you see, one's Other is quite often similar to their corporeal version. Similar in appearance, similar in internalized patterns, similar in character traits. Cosmic Magda too thought highly of herself and shared similar attitudes of impatience and masterful-predatory instincts that made Magda the Forest Cat who she was -- the two were linked!

Of course, Cosmic Magda knew better because she could see deeply and belonged to a deeper substratum of the realm we call "living."

"What's that suppose to mean!?!" Cosmic Magda shouted at her physical version through the pocket mirror.

"I just I have an errand for you to run!!"

"Oh so now it's an errand." Magda commented. "First it was a task, then it was training, now it's an errand!" Magda said bitterly into the mirror.

"You insolent little molly," Cosmic Magda began to hiss under her breath.

"Okay, okay. I can go after, I'm finished with my errands." Magda replied back. A gust of wind lined itself along Magda's the Forest Cat's fur. An invisible scarf of sorts, framed her natural beauty, and made her look more carefree than usual. The universe in essence affirmed the attitude she had been, and still was partially, feeling until her argument with Cosmic Magda began.

"I don't work on your time table. You work on mine."

Magda gave a small meow, "but I'm the mortal one!"

"All the more reason to listen to me." The Other commented.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Magda said exasperated.

Before another argument could break out between the two. Cosmic Magda asked, "what's so important that you're willing to ignore me? Huh?"

Cosmic Magda's inflection on the word "willing" sent a chill down Magda the Forest Cat's spine. The fur on her back began to stand up. The physiological response had already started when the wind from moments ago curled itself around the Forest Cat's fur. It unconsciously reminded her of when she first met Cosmic Magda and all that followed on that fateful day. A sort of muscle-emotional memory proliferated in that (this) moment.

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"Well, if you must know," Magda said sell-absorbed. "I had plans to stop by the lake. Maybe get some lounging done. Perhaps visit the spa if any of the lake turtles still have a parlor open this late in the season."

"You, you..." Cosmic Magda grew more and more infuriated, her pupils sharped in predatory slits. Then Cosmic Magda stopped: "Fine. If that's--"

The Forest Cat interrupted the Cosmic Other, "Fine? ... What do you mean fine?"

She added, "Nothing's ever just fine with you. There's always some plot, some machination! Don't tell me things are fine when all you do is play mental chess all day!"

"You should look in the mirror sister!!" Cosmic Magda bellowed.

The Forest Cat got whiplash from that reply.

"Cosmic Magda finally revealed her ploy: "I was simply going to offer you the experience of being a genie for a short while. I was thinking it would be fun and you could learn lots," she said the end of her sentence all chummy.

Magda the Forest Cat suspiciously peered into her pocket mirror. "What do you mean genie?"

"As in one who grants wishes..." the Other said.

Magda's eye bulged in pure fear and fright, "Oh no!"

"Oh My Eternal Poet, calm down!"

Magda began feverishly meowing and chirping. "Not again! Please don't send me back! I repent! I'm humble!! I've learned my lesson! Meow meow meow."

Magda the Forest Cat was on the verge of tears.

A small wicked smile began to form on the edge of Cosmic Magda's lips. "It's not like that!" She truthfully commented to her frightened physical counterpart.

"I don't trust you," the Forest Cat said. "I know I can rely on you, but I still don't trust you! What if something were to happen to me? I just can't go through that again..."

Magda shook in fright in "that" year she spent as a mouse. At the end of that journey, she had been left with a feeling of deep peace and deep sense of inner knowing. But feelings fade, and Magda could still run her metaphorical paw over the emotional scars of that period as well.

"And therein lies the problem," Cosmic Magda replied. "What's the point of having memories if you're not going to use them? You look but don't see."

All of that went over Magda the Forest Cat's ears. "I... I," she stammered unsure what to say, paralyzed by fear and indecision.

Cosmic Magda asked, "have you heard of Cosmic-Truth Social?"

"Eww. You mean that gimmicky social media platform?" Magda asked. "The one with all those jackasses and the raccoons with rabies?"

"Oh, there’s a lot more there than that: coyotes, demented elephants, thieving falcons … Yes, that’s the one."

"Well what about it?" Magda said still uncertain about what lay ahead for her but she knew at this point, with regard to Cosmic Magda. It was an in for an acorn, out for an oak tree type situation. Nothing ever came easy with the cosmic spirit, and it was always something that resulted with lots and lots of growth.

Part II

After a day and a half had passed. Magda had returned to work.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

“Oh hush! This is fun!!” Cosmic Magda replied with excitement.

A day and a half ago Cosmic Magda had floated the idea of Magda the Forest Cat acting like a genie on the social media site Cosmic-Truth Social. It was the type of online forum where anyone with an internet connection could login, spout whatever “truths” they wanted and then logout.

Magda had initially resisted the suggestion but was sold on the idea when Cosmic Magda explained that “act like a real genie” meant she would actually be temporarily bestowed the powers of a real one. However Magda soon realized that this “adventure” as Cosmic Magda had called it was anything but what Magda thought it would be: fun, exotic, novel, and power trip-like.

The truth is that Cosmic-Truth Social was a cesspool of misinformation and vicarious-voyeuristic entertainment for the masses. Sure, it had its merits too, for it had the opportunity for like-minded creatures to get together and forge new relationships as well as served as an important terminal of information for created communities to center sets of similar ideas together into an important focus point.

But Magda spent her first day being trolled relentlessly. Animals pretending to make wishes but then canceling them so she could not make them. And messaging her all manner of privates and public lambastings how “G4ni3s ar3n’t r3al” and how she should “go jump into an orca’s mouth.”

That is to say, that most animals did not know the most interesting thing about Cosmic-Truth Social. That it wasn’t just visited by critters of the forests, and the deserts, and the tundra and sea – that is, those places in the world that had been populated with fiber optics cables.

No, it was also home to the occasional metaphysical entity making its way through the cosmos. One stopping by for a bit of fun and to explore and re-visit the human realm.

It was a day and a half ago when one of those metaphysical entities, a genie named Ronald, hanging out on Cosmic-Truth Social contacted his friend Cosmic Magda and asked her if she knew anyone who could take over their account for a while while they went to go tend to a family emergency. They had built up a following online but did not want to lose their momentum.

The family emergency was that apparently Ronald the Genie’s mother The-Sands-Of-Time had misplaced her reading glasses. And the last time she went looking for them she had taken a small tumble down a flight of dark energy in an unknown part of the universe; and, as you can imagine when The-Sands-Of-Time are shaken too violently the polarities and direction-ness of the universe become reversed.

Time itself becomes frozen, pools of tachyons build up throughout the cosmos to such a degree that the universe changes from its natural-current mode of Expansion to one of Retraction. Ron the Genie was in essence on his way to avoid and preempt a cosmic emergency so his prankster shenanigans on Cosmic-Truth Social had to wait.

“I owe you one, Mags,” Ron commented to Cosmic Magda over the complainings of Magda the Forest Cat: “I don’t wanna go. You can’t make meeee. Meow meow meow.”

Ron looked at Cosmic Magda with a “yikes” face over the melodramatic character of her earthly counterpart.

Magda the Forest Cat of course saw his look and was deeply offended that anyone would not be completely ensorcelled with her beauty and natural grace. She shook her pocket mirror violently that housed – or more accurately displayed – the two cosmic spirits: “I’ll give you cosmic emergency. Meow meow. Take this cosmic earthquake.”

A momentary stop to see if she had done anything, only to shake again. “Reversal, reversal, reversal. Time to be upside down.” More shaking followed to no effect.

Cosmic Magda grew irritated and reached out through the pocket mirror to put her jaws of death in front of Magda the Forest Cat in a pretend bite.

A shiver went down Magda’s spine and up her tail.

“Do I behave like a petulant child in front of your friends?” She asked, retracting herself back into the two-dimensional pocket mirror.

Magda silently glared at them through the mirror.

“She knows this place isn’t real, right? That we are all just layers stacked on top of each. Some interacting, some in isolation. One big sedimentary cake of cosmic-ness and dimensionality. Right?”

Cosmic Magda looked off to the side in slight embarrassment, “She’s not the most spiritual kitten of the litter.”

Magda said nothing and just listened but commented in her head, “only the prettiest, and most smart, and sharpest of talons, and best predatory reflexes.”

Ron the Genie bid them both farewell and dissolved into the Ether.

END

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