Second Start

I had just witnessed the most horrifying scene unfold in almost a fraction of a heart beat. The raw, pure emotions surging through my heart caused me to be crushed by the weight of my conscious deteriorating. It all started when I followed this rather strange cat into a poorly lit, filthy alleyway one night. The thing I believe that set this poor ragged feline apart, was her blonde hair with a white streak running down her nose. She was limping. It looked as though she had been hit by a car or attacked. And the moment the cat looked at me, I knew she was begging me to accompany her.

I felt this rush overcome me as I sat there in that coffee shop watching her. This feeling of certain responsibility. I had to follow her, almost as if it were already set in stone, similar to a distant memory. So I did exactly that. I got up and followed her down the vine wrapped brick chasm leading down two small businesses. Upon entering the alleyway I noticed the sky started changing color and everything in me was screaming to run but for some extremely bizarre reason I felt it necessary to continue down this uncanny pathway.

As I neared the other side of the alley, I found it harder and harder to focus. All of a sudden an excruciating headache, as well this overwhelmingly pungent smell of gas smacked me. At this period of time the feeling of panic was only increasing at a tremendous rate. I reached the end at last, revealing an entirely contemporary world, but it was so empty. It gave the same feeling of a piano whispering a gentle tune on a cold night. It felt like love. Yet it still felt eerie and distant. The smell and headache had vanished. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cat but this time she wasn't limping. She didn't even appear to be in any pain what so ever.

Perhaps she felt this very same sensation as well. If so, was it as wondrous for her as it was for me? I began to follow the cat once more. This time closing in on her, as I traveled further down this rabbit hole of a world, I saw how precious life is. That it truly is mysterious just as the cat was to me. We knew nothing of one another. Simply two stars burning their time down until it all ends, just crossing each others paths while on our way to our destinies. She departed from the streets as she mounted this authentic white picket fence leading to a beautiful yellow and white home.

As I previously stated, the surroundings felt uncanny. It felt slightly fake. I entered the home searching for her but just as I passed the threshold of the doorway, the sky behind me illuminated everything in a repetitive red and blue flash. I covered my ears and fell to the ground as this piercing siren screamed in my face from every direction in a distorted manner.

I tried to scream but nothing. I was left paralyzed, unable to move a muscle in my body from that position. Then a miracle revealed itself. All of a sudden the cat appeared beside me. She rubed up against my side and her soft comforting purring released me from the pain. She left me once I showed signs of the pain disappearing. She wandered to a nearby couch placed in the middle of the room. The couch was a beautiful dark shade of red. Draped over the arm of the couch was a silky velvet fleece that reads the initials J.C. in gold lettering.

She sat in it as if it were her throne, overlooking an ocean of riches. Opposite from the couch was an old school television set. On the T.V. there was what seemed to be a hospital. I heard a voice speak in a heavy hearted tone. The voice said “I'm so incredibly sorry but we have to accept that he's gone. He collapsed and damaged his skull when he fell.. It has been three years since the gas leak. Don't you think it's time to move on?"

What followed breaks my heart even to this day. All I could hear was uncontrollable, heart broken sobbing from a young girl. This young girl was my daughter. I was all she had left after the passing of her mother. She was only six years old when her mother was involved in a fatal car crash. Her mother’s name after marriage was Jennifer Caitlyn, aka J.C.

I watched the television, as I was left weeping sorrowfully. Tears racing down my face, tracing my soft cheeks. I attempted to scream for my sweet girl.. Nothing but painfully sharp silence flooded my ears. I suffered the worst pain ever shall I encounter. I could not leave her to blow in the wind alone, always searching. As I sat there devastated and outraged that I couldn't save her this time, I felt a paw rest on my leg. I look down to see this soft look in the cat's eyes that seemed to say “Go to her, she needs you”.

I wrapped my arms around the cat softly as the last tear I shed traced my face, then I let go. Gradually I made my way towards the T.V. I paused for a moment just before I reached the T.V. I looked back, and smiled at the cat one last time. Mouthing the words “Thank you Jenny”. I turned back to the T.V. and stepped through the screen, one leg at a time.

I remember waking up in that colorless boring hospital bed, surrounded by IV's and heart monitors, flashing a pulsating rhythmic beeping sound every couple seconds or so. Despite the drowsiness I felt, the first thing I did when I had the chance was hold my girl again. The story I was told by everybody involves a gas leak. Apparently I hit my head after passing out. Shockingly that was over three years ago despite it only feeling like 3 minutes. The doctors were astonished to say the least.

I've tried going back to the alleyway a multitude of times since, but as of lately I've given up and let go of it. The coffee shop I went to was shut down two years into my coma due to a second gas leak shortly after the first. I personally would like to believe that I witnessed a snippet into heaven. Ever so often, I'll catch a glimpse of Jenny with her beautiful blonde hair down, not wearing any shoes, in a flowy white sundress. She’ll have this look on her face that shows peace and pure joy. Every time she appears in sight, I'm reminded how lucky I am to be alive.