Living in the Past

The ancient library was there, but the books weren’t the way in which you would think them. They invited you into their stories, the characters actually stretching out their hands and beckoning you into their worlds, flooding with adventure, chaos, danger, mystery and a thirst for knowledge. “Hungry for a new life?” Begged these characters.  

“No!” You’re too afraid of what would happen if you were speared by an Egyptian, stabbed by a medieval giant of a deer-hunting man or gutted by a saber-tooth tiger. What would your best friend think? Would she even remember you? Give your eulogy?

Yes, all these things!

“Everything is changing!” A cry jerks you back, as if the cry itself bursts out with clenching hands, shaking you. “Come! Help us escape the monsters here. They’re going to eat us.”

“No!”             

You dash away out of this library, away from such horrors. Slamming the door through which you went to enter this evil library, you then take a breath of fresh air. Well, wet air, as it is raining. Soaked as you trudge home to your boring, dirty apartment, you growl at your cat who mews at you and then proceeds to chase some mice and rats kicked out from the shrieking neighbor beside you. Banging the door open, you slam this door, too, barely hitting your cat as it zooms through your apartment room, you yelling to not have it curl up contently and feast on its dinner. After kicking the rain boots off, you dash into your room, pristine comforters unfairly turning brown and an ugly yellow from what you see as mud and rainwater—

“Stupid cat! Get off my bed. I’m not taking it to the dry cleaners again!”

The cat ignores you, but your balled fists, raised high above the cat’s head, threaten to strike should she ignore you still. But dropping them, you sigh and say, “Get off. Get off, cat.”

The cat’s eyes are still on the half-mutilated rat and then swallows. It looks up at you and blinks. Then back to the delicacy. You shake your head, smirk and head over to its backside, pushing the animal off your bed. A mud trail boils your blood, and you grab the cat by its scruff of the neck and drop him outside of your apartment room. It cries and cries, but you crank up the TV to drown out its incessant meows.

Hah! You celebrate being human. Deciding whether you want to let the cat in or not is freedom. Pure, unadulterated freedom. Falling back onto your bed, you slump against the pristine pillows, and let your feet hit the squelch of the mud upon such white comforter. You shrug. That cat’s going to see a new comforter.

You take it to the dry cleaners tomorrow after work, grumbling like always with the chores you have to do, the food you have to buy and the bills you have to pay. You remake the bed. You snap your fingers, ordering the poor cat away from the—

“Wait.”

You speak to yourself. The cat can go to that ancient library. Be worshipped by those Egyptians. Yes! You grab your cat, and then slow down. Wait. She’s the only family member you have. You’re an orphan, raised by a grandparent somewhere in America, but once he died, he left you alone. Actually, you ran away after he struck you in his abusive, alcoholic rage. So you ended your life—with him.

Now, you’re living alone. This cat—

You bite your lip. “Should I?” You wonder. The cat meows, and struggles to get down. You watch her run away, to the apartment. Wow! You’re surprised, as the cat paws at your door, all the way up on the fifteenth floor. You stand there, amazed at how the cat knows where you live. She’s a cat, after all.

“You’re a cat, right?” You hesitate, blinking quickly. The cat meows. Then you grumble, “Guess so. Don’t have games to play. Just want to rest.” Popcorn is smelled from down the hallway. You grab the cat, and wash her, she hissing and snarling at you all the way. “Well, you cost me twenty dollars at the dry cleaning. So…!”

The cat, you see, doesn’t get up on the pure white comforter. She lays down. You think about that empty box. A popcorn box. You grab it off the shelf, and give it to the cat. She curls up next to it, and purrs. I guess you’re happy, you think. You turn away, jerking away from the precious sight. Going into the kitchen, you slam your hands down on the counter. “No one! No one’s here to celebrate the games with me. Thanksgiving’s with the neighbors. I don’t know them.”

Christmas is caroling and eating in homeless shelters, you lying to pass the day away. But when you were caught, you had to spend a night picking up trash along a highway, a sidewalk and a busy street, gas and billowing smoke watering your eyes and choking your throat with gag-inducing smells. Smells of failure, hopelessness and loneliness.

You go to the mirror in your bathroom. You stand there and touch your cheek. Someone else touches your cheek. Startled, your eyes have widened in anger and you swat at whoever touched you. “Get away—”

A soft voice answers.  

You turn to see her standing there. You blink. Then you gasp. “The ancient library—”

“Come on!” She gives a friendly wave, and you follow her to Roman times. We need help with building a chariot, she says. How can you help us? You think. My cat. You get your cat. You tell her she needs to run a race in the chariot. You wait, cheeks burning, and everyone laughs out loud at you. You forget the fears you had. Someone stabs you, someone stabs you.

You’re no worth alive than dead. You’re already dead. Dead to everyone you’ve been family to.

Anyway, the cat blinks and scratches and shreds wood, helping you. Magical cat, you grin, and, somehow, the chariot is built. By your cat.