It was before dawn and still dark when Phil woke up. He roused his middle-aged body and padded downstairs in stocking feet to make his coffee. As the water began to boil his senses came awake, he realized there was something wet and slippery soaking through his socks. The cat was old. The cat gets sick sometimes. He took both socks off and used it to clean up the cat’s vomit, gagging only slightly. The water kettle beeped, and he poured the water over the Chemex filter. Another waking day had begun. Shit happens or sometimes barf. Let’s move on.
***
Fast forward through the next morning, nothing remarkable, unrecallable, he gets up, he eats some food, he does some work, he lets the cat out, lets the cat in, whatever. Probably brushes his teeth and watches ESPN. Doesn’t matter. Just another day.
***
The day after that was a Thursday. Probably. Doesn’t matter in the scope of things. Not pertinent to the story. As he wakes up he hears the cat hacking away, low and guttural in its desperation. Effing cat, he thinks, but he loves the cat. Phil gets up and throws on some sweats and heads down stairs, pushing the limits of pre-6 a.m. physical coordination. He’s dully aware he’s taking risks, but the cat is in serious discomfort. The cat needs to go outside and eat some grass. Now. Somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe three stairs from the top with eight to go Phil feels something wet and cool and slick beneath his feet and let’s just say, the centre cannot hold. He finishes going down the stairs using pretty much every other part of his body except his feet.
“God damn,” he thinks, as he comes to rest. “Everything hurts.”
The cat is still hacking. Phil can’t move.
Shoulda put in the cat door is the last thought Phil remembers before losing consciousness.
***
Fast-forward again, faster, this time, about four months. He’s lying on his back watching a SNL rerun, the one with Don Cheadle and he’s got the leg with the pin in it elevated. The cat comes over to join him, purring. When the cat purrs he can’t hate the cat even though the cat broke his body and ruined his life. The cat approaches tentatively, and gingerly puts one foot on his chest, and then another, and then sits, paws together, right there on his chest, in the way that cats do, looking down into his eyes with feline impassivity and says “I’m really sorry about the barf. Since then, I’ve joined a rrrecoverrry program and I’m trrrying to change my life. As part of my rrrecoverrry, I’m making amends to those I’ve hurrrt. You are, needless to say, at the top of my list. I’m sorry for the brrroken collarbone, the shatterrred femurrr, the concussion, the rrradius bone in your left forrrearrrm, wasn’t it? So deeply sorrrrrry! The varrrious sprrrains and chrrronic aches and pains and the months you’ve been disabled. Thank God yourrr insurrrance was up-to-date. If therrre’s anything I can do to, please let me know.”
As the cat talked, Phil thought about how the cat purred his rrrr’s and how different the cat sounded than what he imagined a cat would sound like, if cats did indeed talk. “I thought cats only talked in commercials.”
“Cats talk all the time. You just don’t listen.”
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, Phil thought. But the cat had a point, and Phil told him so. “Maybe I’m not listening, or seeing, or perceiving clearly in any number of ways. It makes one wonder: What else am I accepting without questioning?”
The cat nodded curtly. “Exactly. I had a lucid period of waking yesterday when I woke up from my norrrmal existence, which is sleeping and drrreaming and I rrrealized that I had been withholding myself, from myself. My rrreal life, what YOU humans call drrreaming, when I appearrr to you as curled up by the window in a spot of sun on my favorrrite couch, THAT’S when I am fully alive and capable of so much more. I can facilitate communication with any number of species. I play Backgammon, watch Parrrks and Rrrec, update my prrrofessional blog, do Orrrigami and so on but I neverrr do any of that stuff when we are together in what you call ‘waking’ life ... which is so much less rrrreal to me? Do you follow, Phil? The point is that the limits we put upon ourrrselves are self-imposed. I mean, what would you do, I mean, if you hadn’t slipped on your cat’s barf and tumbled downstairs, resulting in months of physical therrrapy and a burrrgeoning addiction to opioids?”
“What would you do, Phil, if you weren’t afrrraid?”
“Phil?”
“Phil?”
***
Fast forward through the next morning, nothing remarkable, unrecallable, he gets up, he eats some food, he does some work, he lets the cat out, lets the cat in, whatever. Probably brushes his teeth and watches ESPN. Doesn’t matter. Just another day.
***
The day after that was a Thursday. Probably. Doesn’t matter in the scope of things. Not pertinent to the story. As he wakes up he hears the cat hacking away, low and guttural in its desperation. Effing cat, he thinks, but he loves the cat. Phil gets up and throws on some sweats and heads down stairs, pushing the limits of pre-6 a.m. physical coordination. He’s dully aware he’s taking risks, but the cat is in serious discomfort. The cat needs to go outside and eat some grass. Now. Somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe three stairs from the top with eight to go Phil feels something wet and cool and slick beneath his feet and let’s just say, the centre cannot hold. He finishes going down the stairs using pretty much every other part of his body except his feet.
“God damn,” he thinks, as he comes to rest. “Everything hurts.”
The cat is still hacking. Phil can’t move.
Shoulda put in the cat door is the last thought Phil remembers before losing consciousness.
***
Fast-forward again, faster, this time, about four months. He’s lying on his back watching a SNL rerun, the one with Don Cheadle and he’s got the leg with the pin in it elevated. The cat comes over to join him, purring. When the cat purrs he can’t hate the cat even though the cat broke his body and ruined his life. The cat approaches tentatively, and gingerly puts one foot on his chest, and then another, and then sits, paws together, right there on his chest, in the way that cats do, looking down into his eyes with feline impassivity and says “I’m really sorry about the barf. Since then, I’ve joined a rrrecoverrry program and I’m trrrying to change my life. As part of my rrrecoverrry, I’m making amends to those I’ve hurrrt. You are, needless to say, at the top of my list. I’m sorry for the brrroken collarbone, the shatterrred femurrr, the concussion, the rrradius bone in your left forrrearrrm, wasn’t it? So deeply sorrrrrry! The varrrious sprrrains and chrrronic aches and pains and the months you’ve been disabled. Thank God yourrr insurrrance was up-to-date. If therrre’s anything I can do to, please let me know.”
As the cat talked, Phil thought about how the cat purred his rrrr’s and how different the cat sounded than what he imagined a cat would sound like, if cats did indeed talk. “I thought cats only talked in commercials.”
“Cats talk all the time. You just don’t listen.”
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, Phil thought. But the cat had a point, and Phil told him so. “Maybe I’m not listening, or seeing, or perceiving clearly in any number of ways. It makes one wonder: What else am I accepting without questioning?”
The cat nodded curtly. “Exactly. I had a lucid period of waking yesterday when I woke up from my norrrmal existence, which is sleeping and drrreaming and I rrrealized that I had been withholding myself, from myself. My rrreal life, what YOU humans call drrreaming, when I appearrr to you as curled up by the window in a spot of sun on my favorrrite couch, THAT’S when I am fully alive and capable of so much more. I can facilitate communication with any number of species. I play Backgammon, watch Parrrks and Rrrec, update my prrrofessional blog, do Orrrigami and so on but I neverrr do any of that stuff when we are together in what you call ‘waking’ life ... which is so much less rrrreal to me? Do you follow, Phil? The point is that the limits we put upon ourrrselves are self-imposed. I mean, what would you do, I mean, if you hadn’t slipped on your cat’s barf and tumbled downstairs, resulting in months of physical therrrapy and a burrrgeoning addiction to opioids?”
“What would you do, Phil, if you weren’t afrrraid?”
“Phil?”
“Phil?”