Opening
On Friday, the narrator refuses to erase cats from the world and, in doing so, chooses his own death. By Saturday, he embraces that choice with clarity and love, repairing his past through memory, letters, and a final act of connection.
What Happens
Chapter 5: Friday: A World Without Cats
A flashback to the family’s first cat, Lettuce, opens the day. The Narrator and his Mother tend to the cat for five days as she refuses food and water, then dies on the Mother’s lap. Her red collar, once warm with life, now feels like a relic of absence. The memory resurfaces because of last night’s bargain with The Devil (Aloha), who offered to save the Narrator’s life by erasing cats. He wakes in a panic and finds Cabbage safe. He recalls his mother’s conviction that cats help humans understand themselves and wrestles with an impossible choice: his life or Cabbage’s world.
Morning brings terror—Cabbage is gone. The frantic search ignites another memory: his mother’s death four years earlier. At the hospital she apologizes through pain; in their last conversation, she defends the Narrator’s Father, who is absent while repairing her favorite watch—his way of loving, she says. The Narrator cannot accept it. When his father finally arrives, half an hour late and still holding the broken watch, grief hardens into rage. A lasting rift forms. Looking back, the Narrator recognizes their mutual failure to communicate.
In the present, he collapses in a town square, certain he has already erased cats. A meow cuts through the panic. He finds Cabbage at a theater with his Ex-Girlfriend, who hands him a letter his mother entrusted to her “for a really hard time.” Inside is a list, once titled “10 Things I Want to Do Before I Die,” transformed into ten wonderful things about her son—his kindness, gentleness, smile. Cabbage speaks, urging him to save himself, but the letter steadies him. He chooses: he cannot erase cats. Cabbage reminds him of his mother’s “magic trick” against sorrow—close your eyes and force a smile. As he does, he notices a postscript: “Please make up with your father.”
Chapter 6: Saturday: A World Without Me
He wakes with Cabbage beside him, and because cats still exist, he knows he will die. Peace settles in. He recalls his final meeting with Aloha, where he refused the deal. Annoyed but beaten, the Devil reveals himself as the Narrator’s unrealized self—his regrets, unchosen possibilities, and the careless, cheerful life he “could have been.” His parting advice: live the last day with passion.
The Narrator prepares. He cleans his apartment, discarding diaries and photos. At a funeral home, he arranges his own service and ponders the business of death and what, if anything, will remain of him. A realization follows: his life is defined by small, distinct differences he made in the world. Back home, he opens a childhood “treasure box” and finds an old stamp collection, a gift from his father. Those stamps—tokens from his father’s travels—were his father’s quiet language of love. The Narrator recognizes that this tender, wordless exchange inspired him to become a postman.
Holding the stamps, he sees how tiny acts connect a larger whole, how a letter can bridge distances and lives. He decides to write one last letter—a will and a plea—to the person he trusts to care for Cabbage: his father. He remembers adoption day: his father insisted on keeping the kitten and named him. Acknowledging his father’s quiet wisdom, he sits down and begins: “Dear Dad...”
Character Development
Across these chapters, relationships clarify and harden into meaning. The Narrator stops bargaining with fate and chooses a life defined by love, even if it ends tomorrow. Memory opens space for forgiveness.
- The Narrator: Moves from fear to acceptance; refuses the Devil’s bargain; reframes his life around connection; resolves to reconcile with his father.
- The Mother: Emerges as a moral compass through memory and her letter; her joy and unconditional love guide her son’s final choice.
- The Father: Recast from distant to devoted; his watch-repair and stamps reveal a steady, action-based love the Narrator finally learns to read.
- Aloha: Shifts from trickster to psychological double; his confession reframes the struggle as internal—between regret and acceptance.
Themes & Symbols
These chapters crystallize Mortality and the Meaning of Life. Choosing death rather than erasing cats, the Narrator rejects survival at any cost and embraces a life measured by love, not length. Death no longer threatens meaning; it clarifies it. Through Loss, Memory, and Value, grief becomes a guide—Lettuce’s collar, the hospital watch, the mother’s list, and the stamps all turn pain into understanding. The story’s center of gravity shifts to family and Human Connection and Relationships: a son finally recognizes the shape of his parents’ quiet love and responds by writing a letter to mend what broke. And by confronting Aloha—the embodiment of Regret and Acceptance—the Narrator chooses to keep his imperfect past intact, treating regret as proof he truly lived.
Symbols anchor these revelations:
- The Mother’s Letter: Love surviving death; a list that turns her remaining “time” into her son’s worth.
- The Stamp Collection: A father’s unspoken affection; the seed of the Narrator’s vocation and belief in connection.
- Lettuce’s Collar and the Mother’s Watch: Objects that mark the instant life becomes absence; tangible thresholds of loss.
Key Quotes
“A cold, lifeless object.”
- The collar’s transformation captures death’s stark finality—how something once warmed by presence turns into evidence of absence. It grounds the Narrator’s fear and prepares him to honor life without denying loss.
“10 Things I Want to Do Before I Die.”
- The title shifts into a list of the son’s virtues, converting a countdown to death into an affirmation of life. The mother reframes time not as what she lacks but as what her son has given.
“The cheerful, shallow, and uninhibited person [he] could have been.”
- Aloha names himself as the Narrator’s unlived self, revealing the Devil as an internal adversary. The conflict becomes a choice between erasing pain and accepting wholeness.
“Please make up with your father.”
- The postscript directs the Narrator’s final day toward reconciliation. It turns acceptance of death into action in life—healing a relationship before time runs out.
“Dear Dad...”
- The letter begins where the story has been heading: connection. Writing becomes the novel’s ultimate act of love, trust, and legacy.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
Friday and Saturday form the novel’s emotional peak and resolution. The Narrator rejects a painless but empty survival and embraces a brief life bound by memory, care, and responsibility. By choosing cats over himself, he affirms the value of what connects him to others—his mother’s love, his father’s quiet devotion, and the everyday magic of letters. The decision to write to his father completes his arc from avoidance to agency, ensuring that even as his life ends, its meaning grows and continues through the connections he restores.