The Rat Has Caught the Cat

I just sat there and mused for a moment. It all flashed so fast. It was head-scratching; damn, it was head-spinning!

I knew that the physique, the haircut, and the new job have boosted my confidence as well as my status—but to the point where she’s the one that ends up making the first approach! Damn, that was unthinkable! unimaginable even!

Okay, okay, we get it—you’re thrilled, you’re excited, your heart is beating against your ribs that it might break them—yeah, at this point my heart could’ve overpowered even bones— but you need to slow down Matt! This way the engine might overheat and stop!

You know what else you need to do? Or rather, need not do? You oughtn’t to go home now man! You’ve got to escape the fact that you still live with your mom at least for tonight!

I don’t want tonight to be as my life is usually—I don’t want it to be bittersweet. Can I just have the sweet part, even once before I meet my maker?!

****

The setting sun really messed with my settings. I thought I was hardwired to reminisce about the sad and the touching whenever I encountered a beautiful landscape. But this setting sun broke the rules. Broke the cycle. It made me smile. Grin from ear to ear.

The sun had had some aid in that matter, though. This beautiful young lady’s face, her cold-bitten red nose, and her slow meditating steps across the other side of the train rails—All of that had just co-painted a picturesque scene.

There were some passers-by every now and then. They were speeding past her. Unlike how the train was about to move, she moved at a snail’s pace. Maybe she’s like me; maybe she’s not here to catch a train, maybe she’s here to just sit and reflect—or in her case walk and meditate.

One particular passer-by really captured my attention. He was a toothpick-thin guy, that’s apparently not dressed properly for that freezing cold. How could a guy that thin be wearing these thin clothes on such a merciless winter night? He looked like a trembling rat.

At first, he was stationary. Just holding his position, staring in one particular direction without a slight sideway-movement of the eye.

He looked at nothing but the red-nosed cute girl.

I tried to divert my attention from that, so as not to sabotage the portrait. But all at once, I found him starting to move with leaping strides.

He was speeding in one direction on the platform. The train was speeding in the other on the rails. And the girl, was between them, almost standing still on her place on the platform.

As he paced past her, I found his hand extending—NO! No! It wasn’t “extending”! He whipped his hand out of his pocket in a flash, and pushed the girl!

****

My mom saw me off unceremoniously.

After one hell of a night, a night that was a rollercoaster of emotions, I decided to move out. Didn’t have enough money yet, yes. Barely had enough courage, yes. Lacked the motive—A big fat no!

The sight of this girl committing suicide kept me up at night. Yes, then I thought it was murder, but there was a consensus among other witnesses: There wasn’t no rat-man pushing the kitten on the rails.

At the outset, I was lashing out. Cornered by my thoughts. The images kept racing through my mind. But what made me resign, at last, is that I found those images fade over time. Just like a dream. A dream that you cease to remember after a while of waking up.

I’ve to say, it’s a shitty place that I stay at now. And what’s more horrible than the place I stay in, is the place that stays in me. The train station.

True, I almost no longer have a vivid memory of the rat-man, but the red-nosed kitten keeps raising red flags in my mind. Red alarms. Deafening sirens. Something isn’t okay with my machinery.

I had to troubleshoot the cause.

****

“Who are you again?”

“I… I was there that night… when your sister… you look a lot like her by the way”

“yeah… and why are you here?”

“Okay listen, you look like you haven’t slept in months… maybe this isn’t the best time… I’ll swing by later…”

“Sit!”

“Okay… I’ll reiterate for the last time, then I’ll flash out of sight: I’m haunted by your sister! she didn’t seem like someone who’s on the brink of committing suicide that night! It’s all so weird and…”

'Read this! and “flash out of sight” as you want! The poor girl had just got tired of taking care of our mentally-challenged creature… she got tired of running after him everywhere to fix his shit! I’ve told her he should be homebound! He’s not a man; he’s a brute! She had given up the pursuit in her last days, though. And finally, by doing what she did, she unburdened herself… and threw that burden all on my shoulders!’

****

A suicide note. What more conclusive of evidence can there be!

I should just drop this. I should reply to Sarah’s messages. I can’t expect her to keep running after me forever!

Where did all of this mess come from! I thought I was beginning to get it together!

****

I would have dropped the matter, except that I started seeing the rat-man again, in my head.

Actually, I think I caught glimpse of him once at the mall. Or was it at the cafe?

I can’t tell for sure, but the images were too vivid to be ignored.

****

I was lucky to have a close sibling in the department. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten someone to sketch the descriptions that I had to say, and provide me with a clear, tangible image of who I know was the culprit.

I took a copy of the picture and went roaming. Yes, I told my sibling that I’ll leave the police to it, but I just couldn’t keep my word.

****

I looked for him everywhere.

I had no luck.

On one of my searching trips, I cross-pathed with Sarah. She acted the same way she did when she first saw me—as if I didn’t exist.

She no longer ran after me.

Back then, when the incident was still somewhat fresh, we stayed together for a while in my new place. She had my back. She told me how she used to have me occupying her mind at all times even back when I thought she overlooked me. What stopped her was so many fears and concerns that she fully explained. Her saying that was a blast. It was all like a great dream. One that I didn’t appreciate.

And a great thing doesn’t really become great if it’s under- or unappreciated.

Oh god, I caused her so many inconveniences!

That doesn’t matter now. I no longer exist to her. And that makes me feel that I no longer exist at all.

****

I was an idiot. I thought that what I did with Sarah was irremediable, and irredeemable.

I was wrong. She took me back.

But once an idiot, always an idiot.

****

Just when my life seemed to be getting back on track, I came back to the place where it all went down.

I sat there, on the same bench.

I kept looking at the site of the incident, merely blinking.

Hours have passed. Nothing has happened.

****

I came back the next day and did the same thing all over again.

Nothing happened.

****

After a week of the same relentless pursuit, I finally saw a familiar face.

She was red-nosed. Shaking in the cold. Pacing the platform. head down. Hands in the pockets. Mind elsewhere.

As the train was about to move, I saw her stand still and face the rails. I caught a glimpse of her countenance: She’s the sleepless sister!

“No! You shouldn’t do this! please!”

Our eyes met. She smiled.

“I can’t do it alone, I need help!”

" I can help you!”, I didn’t know if I could.

“I’ve already got my help!”

“Then how come are you here now doing this?!”

I barely finished the question, when another familiar face appeared. I had to take out the sketch from my pocket to ascertain. It was him! The rat-man!

****

“It can’t be a coincidence!”

“look! I’ve helped you with the sketch as a favor, please be thankful for that and go away! They’re just a couple of messed up sisters, with a psycho for a mother, from whom they inherited nothing except the caretaking of their freak of a brother! Bad thing they have a conscious, otherwise they would’ve abandoned him instead of abandoning their own lives. If you ask me, he’s the one that should’ve refused their sacrifice, even if it’s at his own expense!”

My sibling’s words were frustrating, but they also have kindled some strange intuition that made me go to a certain destination headlong.

****

I paid another visit to the kittens’ house, just to find that its only occupant now was the rat.

He told me, stutteringly, that they just needed a push.

“It was time for me to help them. They wouldn’t leave me alone, they thought they were helping me this way. You don’t help a person the way you think he should be helped, you help him the way he thinks he should be helped. That’s why I didn’t even try to talk them out of it.”

That was such a twisted concept. With reasoning, it wasn’t acceptable. But there was an emotion, not a thought, that this concept of his has provoked in me.

I knew I had to take the opposite direction.

The rat, the cat, and the train shouldn't become parts of another portrait.