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Marquis Karabas—an aging and extremely negative character from the fairy tale "Puss in Boots," specifically an evil wizard and man-eater—sat in deep sorrow on a beautiful sofa in his still-owned castle. Heels clattered on the marble floors of the palace.
"They want to kill me. For the millionth time.—Come in, Barsik. No rush. Relax. The fairy tale ends for today: Grandmother was called, the child is bored and has fallen asleep."
The cat joyfully kicked off his boots at the door, setting aside his gloves and feathered hat. He dropped into a soft armchair in his own peculiar way and stretched out his hind paws. Barsik's naturally white woolly paws were disfigured by bloody calluses.
"Damned fetters," the cat cursed at his boots.
"But you wanted them!" exclaimed Marquis Karabas, while retrieving a freshly made milkshake from the refrigerator, sprinkling it with catnip, inserting a straw into the glass, and placing it on the coffee table in front of the cat.
"No, it wasn't me who wanted them, but our authors—Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, curse them. And now I have to rush through forests, fields, and castles with these horrors on my paws." Barsik looked contemptuously at his pile of clothing.
"Put boots, gloves, and a hat on any kitten and let it catch a mouse... Yes, right now! Idiots, damn them..." the cat cursed at the fairy tale writers.
"Yes, the storytellers have no clue," confirmed the Marquis. "And they made me, the wizard, into a fool. As if I didn't know that cats hunt mice—and so I simply offered myself up to be eaten."
"Sorry, buddy! According to the script, I have to work. Personally, I especially prefer partridges."
Marquis Karabas and Barsik the cat had been friends for a long time. There were pleasant moments when children fell asleep before the fairy tale ended. Then our heroes could sit together in peace and complain to each other about their unfair, fairy-tale fate.
"I'm not evil at all, and certainly not a man-eater," lamented the Marquis, while rubbing a healing plantain salve onto the wounded cat paws. "If you had just said that you needed a castle, I would have cobbled together more splendid chambers for your master instead of those dwellings."
The cat sighed and justified himself guiltily: "Adventures are needed, the battle between good and evil. And for that, someone must be designated as the villain and criminal—and then be defeated. Besides, children's nerves need to be tickled so that the child is excited, frightened, and ultimately delighted."
"And so evil must be invented—swallowing Little Red Riding Hood and grandmother, killing Snow White, and driving little Hansel and Gretel from home into the forest..." Marquis Karabas frowned. "This is how children learn in their earliest years that evil exists. And later, someone even starts to commit it themselves! And then everyone complains that the world is unjust."
The cat sobbed and nestled against the Marquis's shoulder. "If only someone would rewrite our fairy tale! I've had enough. For two hundred and fifty years, I've been running across the fairy-tale land, killing my best friend every day. Fortunately, our fairy tale has been read less frequently in recent years, so we have the opportunity to chat with each other."
The feuding friends sat together half the night, talking about their problems. Marquis Karabas told the cat about the contents of the first chapters of the second volume of "The Secret Doctrine" by H.P. Blavatsky. The wizard was working on his karma. He, who had been slandered and innocently killed countless times, was promised an eternal, happy life. But what would be the point of having that if his old friend Barsik wasn't by his side???
The tired cat dozed off on the warm knees of the Marquis. The wizard, after closing the volume of "The Secret Doctrine," wrote in large letters on the cover of the book: "My dear storytellers of all countries! Let your fairy tales contain only kindness, friendship, and love. Enough of slandering, quarreling, killing! If all this exists in your world, then at least let the fairy tales be bright and good..."