Loki Lafoks

Hi! My name is Loki Lafoks, and I’m a cat. Not just any cat, mind you, but a very special one. I’ll share that story in a moment.

I live in Berlin with my roommates: Alice Lafoks and Oleh Lafoks. I’m the manager of the art-rock band Darwin’s Cat. Within Darwin’s Cat, I’m the most important member, because everything we do happens thanks to my wise management. I oversee everything: from scheduling my breakfast (in my humble opinion, breakfast is the most important meal of the day) and deciding where my food bowl should be placed, all the way to ensuring the melodic harmony of Alice’s guitar solos. Alice can be quite egotistical and stubborn, so I spend a lot of time teaching her how to play truly magnificent solos. After all, a guitar solo is about tone and rhythm, and rhythm is all about timing. Speaking of timing — breakfast is also incredibly important. Notes in a solo must land in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, and breakfast must also be in the right place at the right time. Do you see the difference between "on time" and "at the correct time"? Every single day, I have to remind Alice exactly when my breakfast should be served — usually three to five times a day… plus a couple of times at night, of course. I can’t sleep on an empty stomach! Now do you understand how hard it is to manage all these breakfasts, guitar solos, and the entire Darwin’s Cat band? And I haven’t even mentioned Oleh’s clumsy bass parts. I’ve only told you about breakfast management; just imagine that I also have to deal with lunches, dinners, and snacks. Managing a rock band is extremely stressful!

Anyway, now it’s time to share my life story. I was born in the enormous Black Sea port of Odessa, which is quite far from Berlin.

My mother was a famous traveller from New Zealand. She completed her third around-the-world voyage aboard the cargo ship Titan Lightning, helping the captain manage the crew. The crew of Titan Lightning were practically pirates, and without my mother’s help, the captain could never have kept those slackers in line.

My father was a port cat from Antwerp, and he helped the head of the port manage the entire harbour. He carried out daily inspections of all the docks in Antwerp, making sure everything ran smoothly and efficiently. The local workers admired his dedication and leadership, and he was known to keep a watchful eye on every incoming and outgoing vessel.

One day, in the port of Antwerp, my mother met my father. It was a historic evening at the De Muze bar on Melkmarkt, with a live band playing. My mother and father fell in love that very night. It was love at first sight. They spent three days and three nights together. It’s a true love story, which I’ll tell another time. After those three days and nights, they had to part ways: Mum’s cargo ship was waiting in the port of Piraeus, near Athens, and she had to return to help the captain, while Dad needed to assist the head of the port of Antwerp.

Two months went by. After travelling through Athens and the Bosphorus, Titan Lightning finally docked in Odessa. My mother visited her sister, my aunt Matilda, who lived on Malaya Arnautskaya Street. Then Mum sailed away again on Titan Lightning to new horizons, leaving me in Odessa with Matilda — because, of course, it would have been too complicated to raise me on a ship.

I can’t say anything nice about Matilda: she was an evil she-cat, and so, for the first month of my life, I grew up at the intersection of Bolshaya Arnautskaya and Malaya Arnautskaya Streets.

Because Matilda neglected me and spent her time drinking valerian with the seasonal workers from the Privoz city market, I fell ill and hurt my paw. Then fate stepped in: one of the Lafokses noticed me on the street and took me to the French polyclinic to see Dr. François. Thanks to Dr. François’s kindness, I recovered and officially became a Lafoks. The Lafokses clearly needed me: without my organisational skills, they would never have been able to form an art-rock band, decide where to place all the food, or learn how to play guitar and sing correctly.

I still hope to see my mum one day. She sends me messages from time to time, and the Lafokses and I visit ports as well. That’s why they bought a house on wheels: we’re always travelling around Europe, stopping by different ports in hopes of reuniting with my mum.