Breaks

Warning: This story contains strong language and concepts of death.

Breaks

Reaching down, I struggled to grab the remote. I was lying on a chesterfield sofa, the remote just out of reach. The fucking Druid had knocked it down.

I was a rather irritable young man, and The Druid was my cat.

I grabbed it, balanced, toppled, slid down. There was a soft thump. I rolled my eyes. I sat up and stared into empty space, my fingers moving in the usual fashion on the remote, a woman starting to speak in a matter-of-factly sort of way from above. I didn't even understand what she was saying.

My mind still does that now and again. Sort of, I don't know, slides out of reality.

Things came back into focus. The Druid walked around the corner of the sofa and the voices and sounds came wafting into my cerebral space once again. I shook myself. My eyes focused some more.

And didn't stop. My head started hurting. “Fuck,” I breathed, closed my eyes. My eyes and head began to relax. I felt The Druid brush up against my right thigh.

“If only you'd let me...”

There is always something new, they say, change is all-encumbering.

My eyes snapped open. I let out a short scream. “Bloody hell,” I swore, shock almost making my voice quiver. My mouth had spoken on it's own. The Druid meowed and cocked it's head at me, almost as if in question. I looked him in the eyes, tilted my head, too, and just as the thought that I actually really liked this cat began to form in my mind the beige dickhead shat on the carpet. “Oh come ON,” I shouted, “am I really that horrible to you?”

The little rascal really can't be controlled, even to this day. Hahah.

I got up, switched the channel to classical music and went and got ready for the day. Or well, night.

I worked at an old factory producing jars and drinking glasses and such, and because the machinery, so I was told, runs best if it operates continuously, there were night shifts. Not a lot of people worked there (the machinery did most of the work), and the night shift paid extra so there was not much speaking against it for me.

I unstuffed my bike from the closet near the apartment door, picked up my bag in which there was a bottle of water, a lunch-box, and a small packet of cat-treats I had forgotten to take out when I had gone to the vet the other day with The Druid, and made my tight way out of the building.

I cycled about 20 minutes to the factory, past the run-down buildings of the city outline and into a rather dark forest, with trodden tracks for cars no one ever saw and fireflies that seemed to live there all year long. Seeing them I was reminded of the lights of Angler-fish. Wasn't quite used to the way yet, I had only been working there a couple of weeks.

A thicket of trees, a particularly winding and climbing stretch and the factory and it's whirring lights reflecting eerily off of the steel plating of the building greeted me. There was no moon tonight, and the sun had already left the world.

Better a mindless job and no one to see and judge than a “good” job and the perils and quarrels and fluffy stuff of annoying, inconsiderate and not remotely fulfilling every day social life I used to think. I knew I was wrong. Deep down, anyway.

I parked my bike, nobody was gonna steal it, and slouched to the entrance of the factory.

Inside I turned right, then left and opened the second small locker on the left counting from the back. Everything looked the same. The building was concrete and steel plating, and the clothing matched it, even if it looked like it had once had life in it. I slipped into the onesie and put on an orange safety helmet. It seemed to glow in the dim lighting and make-up of this place. I stuffed my bag into the little box and went out through the doorway on the opposite side of where I had come from. The clicking and whirring, the clunking and heaving of heavy machinery grew louder as I marched through the place with a slight scowl I wore on my face at most times.

Sometimes I didn't even realize what I was doing, when I drifted off. Quite the predicament for any sort of standard social life, even if the occasional inattentiveness doesn't seem like much – people just assume you don't like them.

“I said good evening,” a stern older voice greeted me, ripped me from my thoughts.

“Hi,” I greeted, turning and looking up to the railings.

“Good seeing you, I thought you'd be late again,” my supervisor scoffed.

“Yeah well the Druid did shit on the carpet but luckily with time to spare.” I realized he didn't know that I had a cat.

“Uh huh.” He paused. “Well come on, I wanna knock off.”

I walked up the steps made of metal grating and sat down at the overseers desk. The stool creaked a lot more than it should've and sank a foot down. Always annoyed me.

Like I said, I was an irritable man. But I promise it gets better, I mean, you all know me.

“Alright, check the back hinge, been slipping again.” It had a tendency to do that.

“Alright,” I said, my brain already dismissing it. I barely noticed the look of slight loathing I got from the guy.

“It better fucking be,” he mumbled and set off, stamping as he went. Presumably figured I wouldn't hear him. Funny.

His footsteps faded, halted; a locker clanged open and shut and the footsteps faded for good. Outside a car roared and took off.

Rain by Steve Conte started playing, I sat back on the stool, leaning on the desk. I loved this song. The factory seemed to grow a little lighter and I relaxed a bit. A doubt started trickling into my mind. Wait... I jumped, panicking and falling heavily onto the cold concrete ground, hyperventilating. My headphones were in my bag. What the fuck was happening.

Now, at this point one might be thinking that I was losing my mind. I mean, in a sense I was, but not in the going crazy sense. I mean, I wouldn't know if I were I guess? But I anyway, I wasn't.

“You're not going crazy. Now can you please shut up? This new habit of yours needs to stop, you keep waking me up.”

I panicked more, I looked around, up, down, but what I had heard, or maybe thought, hadn't felt like language, it had felt like thoughts, concepts, ideas. And yet perfectly clear.

I didn't even realize I was doing that, at the time.

“This is exactly what I'm talking about, stop fucking talking about yourself as if you were reliving your life to some audience.”

What the fuck. Who are you? I tried thinking, my panic stricken mind running more noisily than the machinery around me. I waited, my senses slowly starting to actually reach my brain again.

But nothing came, to my, well I suppose, dismay.

“Oh my fucking god, I'm your fucking cat, you happy? Now stop fucking thinking like that and let me live in peace.”

My eyes widened and my heart seemed to stop. What the fuck?

What the fuck?

“Yeah yeah, get over yourself.”

You shat on my carpet, and you're telling me that was a conscious fucking decision?

My mind was surprisingly in focus and I was grasping this concept exceptionally well, for the circumstances.

“Whatever dude, you haven't changed my toilet in a week,” the Druid, well, thought.

“Well fuck you, what do you ever do for me”, I mumbled, surprised at how easily I could imagine the cat talking. I wondered if saying it worked the same way. Probably not. I tried thinking it.

“What I do for you? My guy, I'm the only social aspect of your life.”

Are you kidding me? I have friends, it's just been hard. This cat was pissing me off.

“Oh yeah, boohoo, your parents died, c'mon, that was six years ago.” I was shocked. This cat was something else. “So fucking dismissive, what the hell,” I whispered, getting up off the ground and dusting my hands. I figured I'd go check on the hinge. A thought struck me.

How was there music playing in my head. Again no answer.

It was often like that, and then I'd go lalalalalalalalalalalalala...

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, we fucking get it. I like to listen to music, and I guess I got carried away and was careless. One thing you do do right is music.”

There we go, was that so hard. I chuckled and then twitched, how was this so easy. I tried again.

At least one thing we can agree on is music. Silence. To be expected I supposed.

The hinge was indeed loose again, I fastened it tightly and headed back. There was a slight pop behind me. “Meow.”

“Where is your bag”

I wasn't even shocked. Surprised sure, who wouldn't be, but not really shocked. “In my locker, why,” I asked.

“You're either forgetful or lazy”

The white cat passed me and headed in the wrong direction. “The other way,” I called, smirking. This cat was so full of himself. I followed him.

“Nope, left,” I said.

“This is where you work? This shit sucks.”

“Tell me about it. But it's really no work and it's close by and pays enough, too.” I was having an actual conversation with my fucking cat. “Now right here and through there.” And I wasn't even struggling to wrap my head around it. I knew why he was here of course, I had just been too lazy to take the snacks out of my bag.

“C'mon, open up already.”

“Yeah yeah alright, chill your bones and watch your tone. I'd like you try and buy these snacks.” I opened my locker.

“I'd just have to walk to the store and grab them, I could always just play cute if I'm caught. You'd have to be a real asshole to deny a cat some well-deserved treats.”

“How come you're so cocky?” I asked with the snacks in my hand. The Druid was sitting and looking at me. “Meow.”

“Fair enough.” I gave him a treat, then another one. He crunched away.

So if you can, what, teleport, and can talk to me through my mind, why the hell are you hanging around me?

The Druid stopped chewing and looked irritated.

“All cats can do this, just that most of the good “owners” already talk for the cats. Also, they don't develop annoying ass habits like yours.” He looked at me reproachfully.

“Seems like you're not actually such a mean guy, are you,” I said, taking my bag out of the locker.

“Yeah yeah go fuck yourself.” He was circling, obviously waiting for me to stroke him and give him his snack.

“Well alright, come on.” I stroked along his, in this light, kind of glowing fur.

Back at the desk I sat down on the stool and the Druid jumped up on the desk. I opened my breadbox, put some snacks onto the lid and put it in front of him. No animal should have to eat from any surface in this factory. I also took out my sandwich and started eating. Crunch, crunch. I took a sip of my water and looked around. “Hold on, I wanna try something.” I took out my little keypad cellphone. I plugged in my headphones and put on Pata Pata by Miriam Makeba. I focused on my thoughts.

Slowly the Druid looked up and tilted his head. Then it started swaying to the beat. I laughed.

“What, if anything it's catchy.”

Seems like someone was just hungry, I thought; but, well, at the front of my brain? At least not in a way that the Druid would hear me. I chuckled.

We sat there enjoying the night and not talking much, listening to anything from bebop to Japanese rap.

“Quite the boring job you have.”

“Right? Isn't it amazing?”

“Quite.” The Druid started purring. I started stroking him absentmindedly. Somewhere in the distance a church tower struck twelve. Soft indie rock started playing.

Suddenly the afternoon came back to me. “Hey, so did you use my mouth to speak?” I paused the music. The Druid’s expression changed to grim, if that’s possible for a cat.

“No”

“Hm...” After all this that bit of information didn’t seem to phase me. My cat’s expression did though. “And my eyes going haywire?”

“Yeah no. Was me who stopped it though. There’s a reason Ancient Egyptians worshiped us. We, well, at least some of us, can communicate with the dead.”

It took a few seconds to set in. “You can do what?”

“No, no I can’t. I used to be able to, when I was young in one of my older lives.” He was still very grim.

Everything was spinning. How many times had I wished I could’ve talked to my parents, begged them to tell me that it hadn’t been my fault. My sisters.

I don’t... Silence.

“Yeah.”

My old family home flashed before my eyes, the sound of my twin sisters running and laughing, me sitting on the swing a little way away, grouching as I so often did.

“Fuck” Tears started quietly streaming down my face, one by one. Memories flashed through my mind, my surroundings went blurry and mono-tone. Not that that changed much.

My parents used to go on long trips, doing whatever form of business they were in and always left us in the care of Hugh. We loved Hugh, but he wasn’t our parents.

A soft wail escaped my throat. I don’t care if you ever come back, you can die if you want to I heard myself scream at them as they left for wherever they were going. I slammed the door in their face. My sisters were on the stairs, crying but I couldn’t care. I ran to my room and locked the door. I don’t remember ever feeling that horrible, except for when my parents didn’t come home. Or maybe when my sisters were sent away. Or when our home was demolished.

There were soft little plats on the floor, my face contorted. The Druid sat down close to me, brushing my arm.

“I’m sorry.” I could really feel it.

I caught myself enough to speak. “It’s alright.” I hiccuped. “It’s alright.” I paused, wiping my face on my onesie. There was a faint pop. I looked around and as I did there was another pop behind me and the Druid came hopping onto my lap with a packet of tissues in his mouth. More tears escaped me. “Thanks dude”

We sat in silence until the church bell rang again.

“I think one of the dead tried to speak through you”

I waited. “Yeah, I figured.” I packed up my lunchbox and put it and the water away. “How does that work, anyway?”

“Don’t know exactly, but the dead have to have some connection to you I suppose. What did it say, “If only you had let me”?”

“Or would let me.” I leaned back against the desk, stroking the Druid.

“Hm... You know, none of what happened was your fault.”

I was taken aback, but somehow not surprised. “No?”

“You remember when I came to you?”

“More like I found you lying in a puddle of mud outside the wreckage of our house, barely a week old and almost dead, but yeah”

“You remember it that way, but I remember hearing you. I used to be able to talk to the dead, and we remember the things from our past life. I tried all I could to find you, turns out I got one of the abilities few of us have in this life and I actually managed to get to you.”

“You teleported?” I almost chuckled. “That’s crazy. But what do you mean you heard me?”

My off-white cat paused and purred a little.

“When we’re young, we hear a lot of thoughts, from our mothers and other kindred.”

The cat paused again and licked it’s chest a couple of times.

“I heard a thought of an older she-cat who was hanging around the neighborhood my mother gave birth to me in. This is my eighth life, so you get to realize stuff a lot sooner. Anyway, in it I heard two people calling out to a young man, barely grown up, so desperately that the older cat was actually trying to drown it out. It just resonated with me and so I ended up at your place.”

“And those were my parents?” My tears were all used up.

“Probably.”

We sat in silence some more, thoughts fighting in my head to make themselves heard. The Druid jumped up and stretched.

“Anyway, that’s what I said, not your fault, heard so myself.”

How could this cat be so nonchalant. It was almost funny. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me. I felt like I could fly.

“Okay, so some dead person tried to speak through me, or, well, spoke through me and that made my eyes strain so much?”

“Yeah, I mean all your senses strain when they pull shit like that. If it had happened again I’d be worried but like this I doubt there’s anything to worry about.”

“Huh”

“You’re probably a soft spot or even a small break in the boundary or something, you and your parents fighting so hard to be able to talk.”

“Yeah,” I sighed.

I like that, we thought.