I was having a pleasant day. I got to do some painting in the morning. I fed the cats, all of them at once. The usual wet food over dry food, ground organs and meat mixed together in a way the kitties adore. How were the cats, again?
Jet was out this morning, probably chasing mice or birds or some such prey. Blue woke me up with his nonstop yowling at 5:30 because he was hungry. Isis slept on the couch all through breakfast. Olive was feeling a bit talkative today. He's usually the quiet one. Olive is getting old, and his spine is beginning to stick out from his back. I've been worrying about him recently. Now, the rest of them were fine, yes? Yes, I believe so. I let the cats go outside today.
I wore my green hat, the one with the feather decoration on the right side and the scalloped edges. I left for town a few minutes shy of ten in the morning. It took me ten minutes to walk to work today. Only ten. Sometimes it takes thirty minutes. With my extra time, I browsed the bakery goods, but decided not to purchase anything after seeing the look on the cashier's face.
Why do they look at me like that? It's the same stare, always. Since I was a girl in elementary school, that is the look they have given me. Like I'm some kind of animal and they should be ready to run away at any moment. Wide eyes and a tense jaw. A sudden jolt in posture, a straightening of sorts. It makes me feel sick.
Work passed quickly today, but Gwen decided to gush to me about her new boyfriend. She should have been working. Why did she talk to me so often? Gwen was irritating beyond understanding. When any good thing happens to her, she expects everyone around her to be just as happy as she is. She has gone through countless boyfriends of all types. I do not understand these types of women.
After work was over, I took a quick trip to the grocery store. Lettuce, garlic, egg noodles, rice, sesame seeds, a block of cheese, ham, a loaf of bread, catnip. In the checkout line, the same stare. Ostracized even by the disabled man putting my food into neat paper bags, item by item.
I rounded the final corner on the way home, when I saw a familiar boy crouching in my yard. As I got closer, I saw Olive. His tail was grasped in the hands of the boy. He was delighted by the screeches and hisses and spews the old cat made. I saw my father's face.
I'm a kid again, and I'm with my dad at the table. It's fuzzy and far away, but it hits me like a bullet through the stomach. Some empty bottles are on the table, and my father has sour, pungent breath. He begins to tell me a story of his childhood. He was playing with a friend one day. They came across a young cat. After pinning it down and prodding it, they decided to try something more ambitious. They found a lighter on a table, and lit the cat on fire. They laughed as it made its last dying meows, and continued to laugh when it was a reduced to charcoal corpse lying in the backyard. My father.
I find myself back in my own yard, watching this boy with my father's face. I see his mother watching him from their porch with a light smile, the kind you see in pictures but rarely on real people. How was she watching her son abuse a neighbor's cat with such lazy pleasure? I became furious and dropped my bags. I began to run toward the boy, yelling.
"Get away from him!"
It got his attention. He looked up, frightened. He began to stand up and back away from Olive. The cat sat down, tired.
The boy's mother cautiously called to him, "come here, Donnie."
He began to run to his house, and he was gone as far as I was concerned.
I fell to my knees to pick up and comfort Olive. I found tears in my eyes, and I let them out. I would take care of him. All of the cats. I had to protect them. Nobody else would.
