Therapist cat

 

She'd been drinking from that tin cup for 15 years. She drank milk or chocolate. She hated coffee. Once, trying it, she'd burned her lip. "Never again," she thought, and she'd stuck to her resolution her whole life. Until now. The little tin cup had disappeared. Without a trace. In despair, she searched every corner, looked under sofas and armchairs. The cup was gone.

Only now did she realize how old she was. Her hands began to ache. She felt as if there were tiny iron filings in them. Her bones ached. Nightmares came—tin cups giggled, tin cups danced, a huge whale made of tin cups opened its mouth to devour her. She didn't buy a new cup. She didn't drink anymore. She found solace in apples. Every day she went to the market, buying fresh fruit. She liked it, but with every bite, the pain and despair grew stronger. She longed for the cup. She knew something important had disappeared with him.

The doctor had prescribed her black coffee. Strong. Surprising herself, she grabbed a container from the shelf, poured four teaspoons, and poured boiling water over it. The hot liquid filled her lungs, and the irritating smell crept into every corner of the apartment. She bit her lip until it bled, determined not to cough. She inhaled the pungent aroma.

Two hours later, she lay crying. She had broken her word. Now she was nothing, nothing. She bit her lip and swallowed blood. It was a childhood habit. She loved the taste of metal. She used to bite her hands, scratch scabs, but nothing tasted as good as blood from her mouth. She did all this out of pain. Often, she was surrounded by mountains of copper coins, scattered baby clothes, empty rice and chocolate wrappers. It hurt her. A lot. To relieve herself, she often went to the market and watched them slaughter chickens. They pluck feather after feather. Or fish. She longed to be a toothless fishmonger, killing carp on Christmas Eve. This dream fishmonger of hers always had cold hands.

She sat at a scrubbed walnut table. Coffee tears slowly welled up in her eyes. When she drank chocolate, they were chocolate. She didn't want to swallow them, but she did so involuntarily. One thought haunted her. Why, I have no friends, didn't I become a fishmonger? She couldn't remember who she was before drinking from the tin cup. Memory gaps were becoming more frequent. It didn't bother her. She was glad she could Not Remember.

Her hands ached more and more. She couldn't carry bags of apples anymore. She bought a fish. A live one. A carp. She placed it in a red bowl. She looked at it for a long time. She took a knife and cut the thread of life. The eye still looked pleadingly. Even when it was dead. Her white bathtub turned crimson. She dipped her hands in. They didn't hurt. She tasted blood. She smelled death. Out of despair, she fell asleep, slumped over the bathtub.

She had a fever this morning. She thought it would be worth visiting the neighbors. Maybe they would help her forget about the fish. At night, she dreamed of an eye staring angrily. A fish eye. She tied ribbons around her hands. Red. Her favorite color. Red. Scarlet. Blood. She tested what she would look like dead. Suddenly, she untied the ribbons. She couldn't be dead. Never.

The wind blew away the shutters. She stared out the open window. She played with an unsharpened pencil, jabbing it into her fingers. She put on a scarf and gloves. She went out. She walked through the barren fields behind the house. She loved the autumn wind. The slamming windows, the broken glass, the overturned trash cans. Sometimes she collected shards of glass. She made stained glass windows from colored glass. Someone told her they were pretty. She stopped. She went to a spice shop. She bought a vanilla and cinnamon stick. And some cloves. Everything was slightly bitter, pungent. She headed for the café. She grabbed a sugar cube and left. She always felt like she was doing something wrong when she took sugar.

She went home and ate a cinnamon roll. She sat down at her desk and took out her Memories. A card from Berkeley, an old car, a candy wrapper. Truffles. Her friend Nostalgia came. She hugged her tightly. "You're the only one," she whispered. She held Nostalgia's hand for a long time. Nostalgia helped her to bed, made her dinner. The next day, she disappeared. She didn't cry anymore; she had grown accustomed to her friend leaving. And to the fact that Memories were enough to summon her.

On the doorstep, she found a yellow note. She liked it very much and decided to put it in her pocket. On the note was a pencil drawing of a cat's head. She liked cats. She had never had one, but she used to feed stray cats. She put the note away and went shopping. She bought milk, cat food, paprika, cinnamon, and throat lozenges. After leaving the store, she wondered why she needed the milk and food. Completely unnecessary. Suddenly, her hands ached. She heard a purr. A cat. The cat was sitting by the store, staring at her with dark eyes. Her red scarf was reflected in those eyes. She was startled. The red scarf looked like fresh blood in the cat's eyes. She looked at the shopping bag, felt pain in her hands, and pulled out the heavy milk and food. She left it on the sidewalk. She quickened her pace. She turned around, and the cat was sitting on an overturned carton, opening the food with his paw. ABSURD, she thought. She walked away.

The next day, Cat was sitting in her window. He crouched quietly, waiting for her to notice him. She was just eating breakfast. She was drinking strong coffee, not flinching, acting as if she liked it. She was nibbling on wheat bread rubbed with garlic. Cat wasn't sure if she liked it. Her face was completely expressionless. Could he live with someone like that? He had a red ribbon around his neck. It contrasted nicely with his gray fur, and besides, she liked that color. He was an individualist, always wearing a ribbon around his neck. Cat watched intently, sometimes closing her eyes. The lady of the house where he was to live read Cortázar's "Stories." She could read them endlessly; they were never boring. Even though she knew each one by heart, she discovered new threads and meanings. She didn't take her eyes off the red book with its greasy fingerprints. Cat was patient, waiting.

She raised her head. Cat sat opposite her. The cat from the shop. It seemed to her that he was smiling and very happy. In fact, the cat was glad she had finally noticed him. A feeling of joy swept over her, for the first time since losing his cup. She gave the cat a piece of cold fish. He didn't care whether he ate the fish or something else. He wanted them to finally start talking.

It was hard to get her to talk. All the cat's attempts ended with either milk or sleeping on the porch. She would lie there for hours and purr. She would purr to herself, thinking the cat couldn't hear. She was wrong. The cat knew everything she did. He knew that she couldn't really stand his ribbon, that it constantly reminded her of blood. He knew how much she missed Nostalgia. He couldn't stand his reflection in the shop window. Yet, even though he knew everything, he couldn't get a conversation going.

He decided to bring on the dream. He worked slowly, carefully preparing. He wanted a tin cup. Lots of tin cups, colorful scarves. Not a single red one. And he. He would have the ribbon. But navy blue. Sad. Navy blue is a sad color. The saddest. Everything appeared in her dream.

In the morning, she drank tea. The cat had prepared it first thing in the morning and sweetened it. She hadn't even noticed. She hadn't fed him. She left. She had intended to be hit by a car, but she quickly forgot about it. More and more often she wanted to kill herself, but suicidal thoughts immediately fled. As if there was a hole in her head. A big one. A huge hole. Or a door. It was the cat, she thought. The cat had opened the door to my thoughts. Now they go in and out with impunity. They never stay. Cat, why do you wear those ribbons around your neck? She realized she was standing on an island at a crosswalk, that she had already missed so many green and red lights. Only now did she notice that when the green light was about to fade, to give way to red, it flashed. It reminded her of something. Flashing... she didn't know what. She would never know.

She'd done something terrible again. She'd bought a live fish and killed it on the sidewalk. No one looked at her, no one asked why. She'd been thrashing the dead body against the sidewalk. She was furious. At the cat and at herself. She wasn't supposed to kill any more fish! She went to the store, bought cat food, milk, a gift box, hand cream, and a ribbon. She returned home and threw the cat breakfast. The cat watched her carefully as she went to the garden, took the fish carcass out of the bag, cremated it, and put it in the gift box. She tied the box with a ribbon. Navy blue. She dug a shallow hole in the ground. She buried her guilt. It was gone now. She cried at the grave. When she got back to the apartment, the cat was already waiting, an aspirin in its outstretched paw. "Thank you," she said. She fell asleep.

The cat knew perfectly well what a burden and a problem she was. Still, it refused to leave. It had thought about leaving many times, but this was never the right moment. He wanted to be with her, he felt he had to, that she couldn't cope without him. He was right—whenever he set off on short hikes, she'd sob, slumped over the bathtub, biting her nails and sharpening pencils. The cat saw her hands shaking, how she buried her face in her hands. Yes, I have to stay, he claimed, maybe I'll leave another time. Now I'm needed.

Winter had arrived, and the gray, ugly slough had turned into a beautiful, white fluff. The cat sat contentedly by the window, watching the birds. Such weather was perfect for walks and conversations, he thought, licking his lips at the thought of their first, honest chat. But it wasn't so. The cat, who could do anything, couldn't provoke conversation. Even when he brought dreams, they didn't talk about it.

They never spoke once in the winter.

Only one spring evening, she sat by the fireplace, took the cat on her lap, and told him everything—about the secret of the unsharpened pencils, about Nostalgia, about the fish. Despite the warmth in the room, Cat shuddered at the cold of her hands. He listened intently, his ears twitching with interest. He knew everything she said perfectly, but he knew his thoughts would not wander now. He decided to leave that night. He had opened the door with his arrival, and now he would close it with his departure. It would always remain ajar, so she wouldn't forget.

On March 20th, Cat died. She knew that Cats have nine lives, and she was glad that he would now help others. Finally, she understood that Cat had come to help her. And he had. She carried his cold body out into the garden and buried it in a shoebox. On the day of his funeral, Cat wore a green ribbon around his neck.

When she returned home, she found his tin cup on the table. She knew perfectly well that Cat had found it somewhere in the recesses of her apartment. She also knew why he had waited until his death to give it back.