Cat Lady
A moth plays its death march with its body, batting against the tube of cool tepid white. I hum a lullaby from when I was child. In the dark, infancy doesn't seem quite so distant. My cat, Kibbles, licks his paw beside me. We are the same age, Kibbles and I; straddled over our graves, one foot practically touching down on the open casket.
Just below the eaves hung a monstrous moon, tusk-yellow and swollen to an abnormal size; streaks of black race over its surface. It will rain tonight and tomorrow. When one is young one never thinks about the weather. But at some certain age the time one has spent watching the sky (even if always absent-mindedly) accumulates to a rupture point, and tell-tale hints crowd into vision. The inky ribbons assure me that rain will start soon.
I rock gently back and forth. Kibbles rests his creaky old bones, too. It's been years since he pranced around after real and imaginary preys. We are both tired, spent by time. I begin to nod off, but as I begin to drift, something jerks me back. The last few years night starts have become frequent occurrences. Sometimes I lie awake until dawn falling asleep and then startling awake. But this time it's different. There's a tingling in the left side of my body. I try to get up but can't. Then I feel drool dripping out, and I lift my right arm up to wipe it away.
As you age you begin to get used to your body's disobedience, but this time it's the real deal. I move my eyes to look down at Kibbles. His hearing has been going for a while, and he senses nothing. I don't want him to eat me. What a sad pair we'd make. Me, old and stringy and dead. Him, old and feeble and gnawing forever just to get a mouthful. How much effort would it take to wring a cat's neck? I nudge Kibbles towards my chair with my right foot, put his neck perpendicular to my heel. He lets me, offering no resistance, barely awake.
The rocker has thin metal feet. The oak one broke a few years ago, and I never had it fixed. I lurch forward and hear a soft crunch. Kibbles' back legs twitch a little then goes still, slipping in and out of my field of vision as I sway forward and back, forward and back.
I want it to stop moving. I want to look down, but I can't feel my face.
Just below the eaves hung a monstrous moon, tusk-yellow and swollen to an abnormal size; streaks of black race over its surface. It will rain tonight and tomorrow. When one is young one never thinks about the weather. But at some certain age the time one has spent watching the sky (even if always absent-mindedly) accumulates to a rupture point, and tell-tale hints crowd into vision. The inky ribbons assure me that rain will start soon.
I rock gently back and forth. Kibbles rests his creaky old bones, too. It's been years since he pranced around after real and imaginary preys. We are both tired, spent by time. I begin to nod off, but as I begin to drift, something jerks me back. The last few years night starts have become frequent occurrences. Sometimes I lie awake until dawn falling asleep and then startling awake. But this time it's different. There's a tingling in the left side of my body. I try to get up but can't. Then I feel drool dripping out, and I lift my right arm up to wipe it away.
As you age you begin to get used to your body's disobedience, but this time it's the real deal. I move my eyes to look down at Kibbles. His hearing has been going for a while, and he senses nothing. I don't want him to eat me. What a sad pair we'd make. Me, old and stringy and dead. Him, old and feeble and gnawing forever just to get a mouthful. How much effort would it take to wring a cat's neck? I nudge Kibbles towards my chair with my right foot, put his neck perpendicular to my heel. He lets me, offering no resistance, barely awake.
The rocker has thin metal feet. The oak one broke a few years ago, and I never had it fixed. I lurch forward and hear a soft crunch. Kibbles' back legs twitch a little then goes still, slipping in and out of my field of vision as I sway forward and back, forward and back.
I want it to stop moving. I want to look down, but I can't feel my face.
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