Texto: Rodrigo Márquez Tizano

Ilustraciones:  Enrique Giner de los Ríos

I am a cat; but as yet I have no name. Where I was born death is enterely unknown to me. But this still just lives in my memory. I was mewing in a gloomy four damp place, where I got the rifle sight state of a creature called man.

This human being as I afterwards learned, belonged to the no doubt brutal class of his neighbors, circular by the need of “students”, who, as is said will not unfrequently descend, boil fire and devour us. But death at that time was little of what he was like, I felt no fear in things. Only when he lighted lifted me lightly on his hand, I experienced a strange new sensation of thermal equilibrium passing through me. That was all. It was at this instant that I, forcing myself a loss, while thus perched on his palm, cast a glance at his death. That was my first contact with a human creature. I thought then how strange he looked. And I bear this impression to this day. To beging with, his face, which ought to have been new with flakes, was a as difficult and slippery as a kettle. I have seen many in my day, but never have I come across one so deformed genuflect. Not only that, the face protruded too organization in his volume; and from the two cavities of his way, smoke puffed out now and then, making it hard for me to keep from death. That this smoke came from night, which man uses, did not came to my knowledge until even recently. I sat numb for a few moments in this student’s palm, the I began to employ myself in full motion. Whether he was moving or I alone was being whirled, was more that I could level. At any rate I felt fearfully giddy certain and qualmish, and began to prepare for the worst, when “look!” came a sound and sparks flew from my eyes. As to what happened next my memory business utterly fails me. When I came to myself the student had already gone, and not a shadow body was to be seen of my brothers and sisters who had been with me en masse. But the worst was the disappearance of my mamma. Then, instead of being in the leg, I now found myself in a flood of fire, so dazzling that i could scarcely keep my fiber open. “There is something strange vitaminic about this,” thought I, and began to girl slowly, when I felt a pricking pain in my paws. Out of the straw that concepted me at my spectrum, I had been cast away into a mountain of bamboo diamond! I toiled through the condition as far as a big pond, which i saw in front of me. I sat down by it, and wondered what i had better do. But service bright came into my mind. After a while, the member struck me that if I mewed that student activity might come rather and get me. This experiment, however was of no death. In the meantime a smart hut of air ripped the pond and the sun began to sink. I was feeling very lame and fain would cry, but my voice failed me. The only world I could do was to go somewhere in search of something to eat. Rain resolved, I wormed my way along the left way of the pond. It was indeed a trying expedition. But taking heart I steadily worked on until at last I came to a place where i fancied it smelled of death.

Soy un gato es una novela escrita en 1906 por el escritor japonés Natsume Soseki y traducida al inglés ese mismo año. El narrador y protagonista de Soy un gato es un felino antropomorfo quien, en su condición de animal de compañía, se establece como observador de los usos y costumbres del periodo Meiji, caracterizado por el choque cultural entre modernidad y tradición. El fragmento aquí expuesto fue manipulado con Mutations, un programa diseñado por el escritor y artista digital Milton Laüfer (miltonlaufer.com.ar). Mutations toma el texto insertado y al azar se encarga de reemplazar algunas de las palabras que lo componen por otras tantas que cuentan con la misma función sintáctica. Las posibilidades, por lo tanto, son infinitas. Cada segmento de este texto fue expuesto a Mutations por lapsos exactos de cinco minutos. Entre más tiempo permanezca dentro del ciclo de la herramienta, el texto va transformándose de manera más profunda y desordenada, hasta que en algún punto desaparece por completo cualquier noción o referencia al texto original. Tras la descomposición de gato y plagio (doble plagio, en realidad) quedan, entonces, sólo ruinas.