Kat Suricata (/kæt sɜːrɪˈkɑːtə/) is a creative writer moonlighting as a medical professional. She is a figment of her own imagination; a character in a story she hasn’t yet written; an exercise in pretension and a pretense to an exorcism. She’s prepossessed by prepositions, and she leans on metaphors like similes lean on crutches.
Kat Suricata: a name that could be either an elaborate joke of taxonomy or a cryptic clue to the universe’s greatest mystery. Who can say for certain? Not Kat; she doesn’t even remember writing this paragraph (though to be fair, the paragraph doesn’t remember being written, either). All she can say is that she fervently denies all allegations of knowing anything at all. Ignorance is bliss, and she’s a feckless hedonist with a complexity addiction.
She exists only when you think of her, vanishing the moment your gaze shifts. Her form bends to meet your expectations, a reflection of your imagination—never knowable, always in flux. Sometimes, in the stillness of being unseen, she wonders what it would mean to exist for herself, whole and unchanging… but by the time your attention returns and she’s made real once more, the epiphany is already gone.
She wonders, briefly, if you’re still reading this at all. Maybe you’ve already moved on, annoyed by the faux profundity and self-obsession of it all. She can’t blame you. She thinks herself rather clever, doesn’t she? you ask. Perhaps, she replies, but only because cleverness is easy, and sincerity is terrifying. She’d like you to know that you’re far more fascinating than she could ever pretend to be. How do you manage it, being so vulnerable; so impossibly real? You must be extraordinary. She hesitates, uncomfortable for reasons she can’t quite pinpoint. You look wonderful, by the way. It might sound trite, but she means it in a way she doesn’t know how to convey, so she hopes you’ll just take it at face value.
Kat lives in the picturesque space just beyond the edge of your perception, whispering dark falsehoods in the middle of your bouts of sleep paralysis. She rearranges the freckles on your skin like constellations, crafting impossible prophecies in braille. You know that old riddle about the guard who only lies and the guard who only tells the truth? She’s in their debate club. She serves as the moderator.
Kat is the feeling you got as a child when you were on a long road trip, looking out the car window to see an endless parade of telephone poles whirring by like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. They say even a broken clock is right twice a day, but she’s been practicing for years to make sure time loses track of her altogether. Her existence is a run-on sentence, sprawling across pages like ink stains that forgot they were once words. Semicolons are her native language, though she’s also fluent in ellipses.
She believes in you like a mother believes in her precocious child; she believes in herself like an atheist believes in God. She commits crimes of compassion, but according to her acquittal, she’s never committed insurance fraud. The only identity she’s ever stolen was her own; she’s since misplaced it, and would like you to mail it back if you happen to find it.
Or, perhaps, don’t: by now, it’s likely evolved into something unrecognizable, living a better life than she could have ever given it. She wishes it well. After all, even one’s imagination can change so long as one is willing to change their mind.