Chaos in the countryside features a strange cat, but there was some real life inspiration.
When I wrote Chaos in the Countryside, I was basing it partly off of myths and legends. Of course, I had to do some research about mysterious tales before I wrote the story. Though the internet shouldn't always be trusted, it is a great resource for getting the imagination churning to write fiction.
About half-way through writing, the idea popped into my mind to look up real life mysteries that might involve cats. (Myths are fun, but real life mysteries are even better.) So, I looked up strange stories about cats. Since I already had the outline for Chaos in the Countryside done, I knew that a cat named Aibell was going to play a somewhat large role in the story. Aibell's a very independent character who travels on her own and knows exactly what she's doing. So I was shocked when I found a story about a cat in Ireland who was as independent as Aibell in real life.
This article from the Independent is about a cat who traveled all the way from Australia to the UK seemingly on his own. That's a 12,000 mile journey! If that wasn't amazing enough, the cat was determined to be 25 years old. For reference, life expectancy for this breed of cat is between 12-15 years. While the rational side of my brain is looking for an explanation that it believes has to exist, the paranormal-loving side of me is thinking Cat Sidhe all the way!
What do you think? Is the article inaccurate somehow? Is there a perfectly logical explanation?
All I know is that reading this article inspired the ending to Chaos in the Countryside. Since I'm not giving away any spoilers, that's all I'm going to say about that.