OUROBOROS.
A tale from the lost Legends of Lazarus.
By Andy Williams.
Some things in life appear to be absolute truth to then have the curtain of illusion is pulled back to reveal its not as it first seemed. This is the skill of the magician! This is his trade, his name is Greyson. He travels town to town selling his elixir of life which is nothing more than spring water and herbs. How could this work you may be wondering? Well, his secret weapon is his cat Cosmo. He found her in the depths of Foxglove forest, a frightened kitten all alone tangled in the thorns of a Death Rose Bush. He peeled back the hard twisted branches and pulled her to freedom.
She was weak, tired and hungry. He placed her on a pile of cushions inside his wooden horse drawn home and gave her a bowl of milk and a dish of sardines. She ate them like she had never eaten in her life before. Something was odd, different about this cat. During this day she aged, she grew large and frail and died that evening. All within 24 short hours. Greyson was both confused and saddened, how could such a creature be cursed with such a short life?
He placed her in a small box with the intention of burying her the following morning. The sun rose, as it always did, but today he was awoken by the sounds of scratching, scratching from the small wooden box! He opened it. What he saw shocked him, a small kitten identical to the kitten he rescued the day before with no signs of the old aged cat he placed in the box the evening before.
Cosmo was a cat with a short but yet eternal life, reborn with each sunrise to live again. Over the years his bond grew strong with his feline friend, although starting a new life with each day she somehow began to remember her connection with Greyson and she too became fond of him.
Together they would travel across the kingdom demonstrating their fake elixir of life, an elixir that to the public’s eyes rejuvenated an old dying cat into a fresh faced fluffy kitten overnight, together they lived a very comfortable lifestyle. A lifestyle that bought them all the luxuries they could have dreamed for, but with anything that’s good comes the bad, they had to keep moving town to town before anyone realised their scam! Greyson knew he was bad, he knew it was wrong, but also with the bad there is good.
An unexpected friendship grew between the two one so strong that eventually Greyson became old, he unlike Cosmo only had one life. At the grand old age of 103 he did not wake that sunrise and somehow Cosmo knew this, this was also the day she did not live another life.