There once was a man with a hat who believed, quite firmly, that he knew exactly where he was at.
He stood in the middle of a street that looked familiar enough, nodded wisely to himself, and announced, “Ah yes. Here.”
Unfortunately, his hat was a cat.
This was not immediately obvious, as the cat had mastered the ancient and difficult art of Looking Like a Hat. It sat very still upon the man’s head, curling its tail neatly around the brim and narrowing its eyes in a way that suggested felt, wool, or possibly tweed.
“Left,” said the man confidently, and turned left.
“No,” said the hat.
The man paused. “Hats don’t usually talk,” he said.
“I’m not usually a hat,” replied the cat, adjusting itself slightly and knocking the man’s sense of direction sideways.
They walked on. Or rather, the man walked on, while the hat gently leaned him in directions that felt interesting at the time. Streets rearranged themselves. Doorways swapped places. A bakery became a library. A lamppost insisted it had always been a tree.
“Are we lost?” asked the man.
“Entirely,” purred the hat. “But very stylishly.”
By now the man noticed that every time he felt certain, the world became uncertain, and every time he admitted he didn’t know where he was, things calmed down a little. The cat-hat hummed contentedly and pointed with one ear toward a place that might have been somewhere or might have been nowhere at all.
At last, the man sighed. “I suppose,” he said, “that I don’t know where I’m at.”
The hat purred, pleased at last to be properly acknowledged, and for the first time all day, they arrived exactly where they were meant to be.
Which, of course, was nowhere in particular. And that was perfectly fine.
The Cat-Hat, part two
There once was a man with a hat who believed, with the stubborn confidence of the mildly informed, that he knew exactly where he was at.
He stood quite still, for standing still always felt like proof. The street beneath him did not object, though it had rearranged itself several times since he arrived. The houses leaned. The sky blinked. A signpost nearby whispered directions to itself and then forgot them.
The man nodded. “Here,” he said aloud.
At this point, the hat cleared its throat.
The man did not look up, for hats were not supposed to have throats, and it is rude to notice such things when they do. The hat, however, was a cat, and cats have very definite opinions about being ignored.
“You are mistaken,” said the hat softly, close to the man’s thoughts rather than his ears.
“I can’t be,” said the man. “I know where I’m at.”
The hat tightened slightly.
With this small adjustment, the street lengthened, the corners bent inward, and the idea of where slid a few inches to the left. A bakery across the way shuddered and decided it had always been a courtroom. A lamppost turned its head.
The man felt a peculiar wobble behind his eyes.
“Left,” he said, pointing.
“No,” said the hat.
The man frowned. “Hats shouldn’t argue.”
“I’m not arguing,” said the hat. “I’m correcting.”
They began to walk, though the man could not recall starting. Each step took him somewhere slightly less certain than the one before. When he felt sure, the ground softened. When he hesitated, it tilted. The cat-hat purred, pleased with the arrangement.
“Are we lost?” the man asked at last, his voice thinner than before.
The hat paused. “Lost implies a map,” it said. “You gave that up three streets ago.”
The man reached up, intending to remove his hat, but found that his hands could not agree on where his head was. His thoughts had begun to wander without him.
“I don’t know where I’m at,” he said quietly.
The world stopped moving.
The hat loosened its grip, satisfied. “That,” it said, “is much better.”
And with that admission, the man arrived—precisely, irrevocably—exactly where he was.
Which was nowhere he could leave, and nowhere he could name.
The hat settled back into place and went to sleep, dreaming of maps that bite.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 