Lord of Awareness

Every morning, she woke while the city was still asleep.
Not for the school bell, nor for homework—
but to count the cats she would see along the way.

Counting them was not a game;
it was a ritual of hope,
like a small morning prayer.

One day, beside a half-collapsed wall,
she found three tiny kittens—
thin, frightened, and silent.
Their mother was gone,
and they had no protection.

All day, her thoughts remained with them:
with those hungry eyes,
with that loneliness.

By evening, she could no longer keep anything inside.
She went to her father—
she did not cry or complain.
She simply said:
“Father… can we save them?”

Without hesitation, he took his coat.
“Let’s go,” he said.

But that night, the kittens were nowhere to be found,
as though the wind had carried them away.
They searched in the days that followed,
but could not find them.

Every morning, the girl walked to school
through the same streets,
carrying the same hope.

Then, one morning,
on the delicate border between sleep and waking,
she had a dream—
so vivid, so bright.

She was seated upon a rhinoceros,
guiding an elegant carriage,
and all the kittens were there with her—
on the horn, the wheels, and her clothes,
like tiny angels.

Hot-air balloons drifted across the sky.
The rhinoceros’s footsteps shook the earth,
but it was not fear she felt;
it was the joy of being alive.

In her dream, the girl cried:
“I found you!”

At that very moment, she awoke.
Her father was beside her—
warm, safe, familiar.

And across his shoulders, his arms,
and all over the bed,
the kittens were playing.

The very same kittens.
Alive.
Home.

Then she understood:
sometimes reality arrives after the dream—
but it arrives.

That day, school, homework, and grades
no longer seemed important.
Only a new awareness settled in her heart:

Sometimes rescue begins with a dream
and is completed by an act of kindness.