Chapter 1: Monday — The Devil Makes His Appearance
[Spoiler Warning: This page reveals the complete plot of Chapter 1 of If Cats Disappeared from the World. If you haven't read it yet, consider starting with the book hub for a spoiler-free overview.]
Summary
The chapter opens with the unnamed narrator, a thirty-year-old postman, grappling with a devastating diagnosis. After weeks of enduring what he assumed was a stubborn cold, he finally visits a doctor and learns he has a Stage 4 brain tumor. The prognosis is grim: six months at best, but he could die within a week. Rather than reacting with dramatic sobs, the narrator feels numb and oddly fixated on trivial matters—like being one stamp away from a free massage and regretting his stockpile of toilet paper.
Arriving home, he collapses at his doorstep. When he regains consciousness, his cat is meowing at him, and an impossible figure stands in the room: his exact double, dressed not in monotonous black and white like the narrator, but in a garish Hawaiian shirt, board shorts, and sunglasses. This doppelgänger introduces himself not as an angel of death but as the devil. The narrator nicknames him Aloha.
Aloha mocks the narrator's attempt at a bucket list—a rushed catalogue of clichés like skydiving, dating Princess Leia, and falling in love. Undeterred, Aloha drags the narrator skydiving, an experience that proves terrifying rather than life-affirming. Afterward, Aloha reveals the true reason for his visit: the narrator will die tomorrow unless he accepts a deal. The deal originates from the Book of Genesis, Aloha explains. He made a pact with God: whenever a human agrees to erase one thing from existence, they receive one extra day of life. The narrator is Aloha's 108th client.
Initially, Aloha considers making chocolate disappear but, after tasting a cookie, declares it too delicious to destroy. When the narrator's mobile phone rings with a call from his boss at the post office, Aloha seizes on it. Erase phones from the world, and the narrator lives another day. As a special condition, the narrator may make one final phone call before the phone vanishes.
Scrolling through his contacts, the narrator confronts an uncomfortable truth: despite knowing many people, he lacks a single deep connection. He considers his estranged father, whom he hasn't contacted in four years, his childhood friend K., and his work colleague W., but none feel right. Finally, he dials a number he hasn't saved—one etched into his memory. The call is brief.
When he returns, Aloha is playing with the cat like an overgrown child. The narrator confirms he is ready. The phone disappears. Aloha departs with a promise: "See ya tomorrow." The narrator drifts into sleep, thinking of the woman he called, and his seven-day odyssey begins.
Key Events
- The narrator receives a terminal brain-tumor diagnosis with days to live.
- He returns home, collapses, and wakes to find his doppelgänger—the devil—in his apartment.
- The devil, nicknamed Aloha, ridicules the narrator's shallow bucket list.
- Aloha forces the narrator through a frightening skydiving experience.
- Aloha explains the transaction: erase one thing from the world, gain one day of life.
- Chocolate is nearly chosen but spared when Aloha finds it too tasty.
- Phones are selected for elimination after the narrator's boss calls.
- The narrator must make one final phone call but realizes he has no truly close relationships.
- He calls a woman whose number he remembers by heart.
- The phone vanishes; Aloha leaves, marking the start of the seven-day countdown.
Character Development
The Narrator: The chapter establishes him as emotionally muted and socially isolated. His reaction to a terminal diagnosis is numbness, not panic. He wears only black and white clothing, symbolizing a life stripped of color and passion. The bucket list he produces is embarrassingly childish, reflecting emotional immaturity and an inability to identify genuine desires. Most revealing is his contact-list crisis: faced with one final phone call, he cannot name a single person with whom he shares a meaningful bond. He lives alone with his cat, estranged from his father, and drifts through life delivering mail—a profession he notes is becoming obsolete. His ultimate choice to call a woman whose number he's memorized hints at a buried emotional history the novel will explore.
Aloha (the Devil): Far from a menacing demon, Aloha is cheerful, impulsive, and surprisingly relatable. He wears Hawaiian shirts, plays with the cat, and sobs over the deliciousness of chocolate. He operates less by evil design than by whimsy. Yet his casual demeanor masks terrifying power: he decides what vanishes from existence, and the narrator's life hinges on his fickle tastes. Aloha embodies a chaotic force—neither purely malevolent nor benevolent, but unsettlingly unpredictable.
The Cat: Present but silent beyond meows, the cat serves as the narrator's only constant companion. The narrator finds comfort in holding the cat after the skydiving ordeal, recognizing for the first time that small acts of warmth may constitute life's meaning. The cat's presence contrasts with the narrator's human isolation.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Isolation in the Modern World: The narrator's contact list becomes a stark indictment of superficial relationships. He knows many people but connects with none. His job—delivering messages—ironically underscores his inability to send one that matters.
The Arbitrariness of Value: Aloha nearly erases chocolate on a whim, then spares it for purely selfish reasons. Phones are chosen with equal caprice. The chapter questions whether the things humans fill the world with hold intrinsic worth or merely accumulated familiarity.
Exchange and Sacrifice: The central mechanism—giving up something universal to extend a single life—raises immediate ethical questions. The narrator quickly rationalizes that the world is full of unnecessary things, a mindset that will be tested as the novel progresses.
Mortality and Regret: The bucket list, the uncontacted father, the memorized phone number—all point to a life half-lived. The narrator is dying, but the chapter suggests he hasn't truly been alive for some time.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 1 functions as a compact origin story for the novel's central dilemma. It introduces the narrator's terminal condition, establishes the rules of the supernatural bargain, and sets a seven-day clock in motion. More importantly, it exposes the narrator's emotional bankruptcy. The deal with Aloha is not merely a survival mechanism; it forces the narrator—and the reader—to confront what, if anything, in the world is truly indispensable. The chapter's closing image of the narrator thinking of an unnamed woman as he falls asleep seeds the mystery that will drive his choices across the coming days.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does the narrator struggle to identify someone meaningful for his last phone call?
The narrator's failure reveals years of emotional detachment. He has collected acquaintances—K., W., coworkers—but invested in none of them deeply. His estrangement from his father compounds this isolation. The crisis of the final phone call forces him to acknowledge that he has built a life of pleasant but disposable connections, leaving him fundamentally alone at the moment he most needs human contact.
2. How does Aloha's characterization subvert traditional depictions of the devil?
Aloha lacks the menace, pitchfork, or red skin of folklore. He dresses like a tourist, cries over cookies, and plays with the cat. This deflation of the devil into something mundane and almost endearing creates a discomfort distinct from fear. Evil, the chapter suggests, rarely announces itself dramatically—it arrives in Hawaiian shirts, offering deals that sound reasonable until you examine what you're losing.
3. What is the significance of the narrator's failed bucket list?
The list exposes emotional immaturity and a life spent consuming empty fantasies rather than pursuing genuine experiences. Items about Transformers, Princess Leia, and Hollywood meet-cutes reveal a man who has substituted pop-culture scripts for authentic desires. The list's inadequacy sets up the novel's deeper inquiry: if you don't know what you want, how can you know what's worth saving?