Itty Bitty Kitty

I was only looking for toilet paper.

Then, three toilets flushed. One after the other. Automatically.

“Stalling for time?” she said.

“Before what?”

I think she made a face. “What must happen…”

“What must happen, where?”

“You know! I’ve been talking about it all week!”

“Cat got your tongue?” I laugh.

#

It’s a lineup down the street at my local exquisitely friendly elementary school.

“Mama bears be picking up their cubs early?” I ask.

“Will you get with the program?” she says. “Schools are getting out early! Isn’t it exciting?”

Cars were lined up through an intersection way before quitting time. One lady yelled at a pedestrian through an open driver-side car window. Then she threw something.

“Where are your brains? I’m driving a car. What are you on?”

The pedestrian made a face. It's like the one I thought I saw before.

“Cars should never line up right through an intersection,” I say.

So, to get through the traffic, I take my car through the local dying mall parking lot. Then I get parked for no reason.

I’ve got to get with it. Get on the clock. A lineup at the currency exchange kiosk was down the mall's main drag. Who goes to a ghost mall to exchange currency?

Having bought nothing, I see this license plate in the parking lot. “DAED 0000”. It's tough to miss. Red with peeling bar codes that no one bothered to peel. The owner had tried to cover it with plastic that attracts dirt, so it's supposed to be hard to see. But it's brilliant in a stupid way. If an officer stops you on a traffic violation, you can just promise to clean it. But if you get stopped, you’re probably cooked anyway.

“It's code!” I joke. “It means DEAD 0000.”

She says, “It’s a sign.”

I’m shrugging my shoulders. "Yeah, I get that. But not in the way you mean it! Sheesh!”

“Watch it,” she says as she punches me on the arm. It's not a light, fun punch like usual.

#

I am still thinking and trying to figure out stuff.

I went to work.

To work I went.

Hmm, same diff? Nope. One could refer to working at home. The other? What I do for a living. In an office. Of course. That working from home, so 2020. It's not my vision, of course. I hope I never need glasses.

The boss was on the clock. It was usually in his back pocket where he could butt dial at any time. But it's in his hands. He’s swiping and swatting. Twiddling and twaddling. I watch him for a while. Curious like. So, this is what you do for twice my salary?

“Hey, Jeffrey! Come here for a second!”

I wander in.

“This, you? On your knees? Dream Scrape strikes again!”

“Funny. Ha, ha.” I say, like I planned it.

“Yeah, hilarious. Thanks,” he replied. “I needed that.”

“Needed what?”

He scowled. “Needed that thing yesterday! Got it already?”

I leave. She starts talking. “He is seriously pissed with you!”

I say, “What tipped you off?”

“Funny boy you are!”

So I’m thinking later, like usual. (Always thinking.) What has been going on lately?

Reminds me of a dream I had. I was on a farm. And Father MacDonald greeted me. All dressed up in black with a clerical collar. With a beard that made him look like a prophet. He said, “Watch those chickens before they are hatched!”

I said, “What?” And I think he said the same thing over again, except I couldn’t hear him. All the cows started mooing.

So, I got a pail, and there was no stool. I ended up on my knees.

Father Macdonald laughed. I woke up.

Then, at work, she said, “Good Morning! The temperature outside is freezing! Mind your britches!”

“You mean wear long underwear.”

“I mean, mind your britches.”

I’m past it by now. “I’ll do whatever I feel like!”

“Whatever,” she says.

So I swear that this was when she started ghosting me. She is no friend of mine on the clock.

“Come in, Jeffrey. I’ll see if she is available,” someone says, this look on her face.

Time slows way down. Way, way down. Girlfriend looks dazed, but she’s there, sitting on her loveseat. The one her Mom gave her when she moved out. Greyish kind of with those things, you know, that have buttons on the bottom, like a hundred navels, each with a button on the bottom to collect dirt. Impossible to vacuum. Like you would even try. Moms do that, not girlfriends with a loveseat from Mom.

“Well, OK now,” I hear myself say.

“That was so lovely!” she enthuses. “I can hardly wait until it starts!”

“My girlfriend, right?” I say to no one in particular.

“No, she’ll come around. Just wait for it," says someone.

“I’ve been waiting half an hour already!”

#

It's what everyone has been waiting for. The big moment. It's night, and it finally arrives—this great on-the-clock thing. People are out of doors doing stuff in the cold. I’ll pass, I said, thinking no one was listening.

“No, you won’t!” she said. “This is it. It's your time to reflect on the coming new understanding! Of everything.”

Everyone had a great time: oohing and aahing. Colors are running into each other in the sky, jumping around in slow motion, way up high. I've seen it before in higher resolution. Some video games I played. I can’t remember what it was. I never knew it was important. Or I would have been more into it.

She got furious. “I told you that you were too big for your britches! I said you needed to watch it! I said it all must happen! I said it was a sign!”

I get this look on my face. “No, you didn’t.”

And that was that. I decided. It was too much, and I had enough of it.

An itty bitty kitty bit me. Tender, just enough to get me off the clock and just be. I didn’t know if I was dreaming or not. I went to get my currency exchanged. Mama Bear didn’t come to get me. But I learned to flush. Real hard.