safety mittens

you bite into your food and chew

to squeeze the rich flavours out. 

you chew some more to savour it.

a few more to really crush it up

and some more to really work it in.

again, for good measure...? 

and yet more? the food has lost all flavour and texture that you craved.

its just mush now.

mush.

again some more.

maybe you like the act of chewing more than anything you put in your mouth.

Marco hit the cat.

His cat.

Well, it was pouring that morning.

And hence, he felt off.

Very off.

Things were not right. It was one of those mornings where you wake up and life just feels like a defective jigsaw puzzle; where you have all the pieces in their right place, but it just refuses to slot in; made wrong from the factory just to insult you; made wrong.

He tried laying in bed.

“Just a little longer.”

The clouds and the rain kept away the passage of time. But eventually, when all his attempts at submitting himself at the jaws of borrowed sleep had failed, the mattress regurgitated him out.

Whatever was left of him at least.

So he walked groggy, and half asleep downstairs. The cat spent its quiet hours down in the basement.

And he hit the cat.

No joy was to be had by any party in this endeavor.

The point, for both of them, was to prove to themselves something deep and fundamental about their continued condition. Something so dear and old that both had forgotten what it is.

But Marco loved cat.

And the cat? It’d die for him.

And he knew so truly and deeply that he loved cat, that he’d never hit it.

And hence it became truth.

But today, all the stops were pulled. Things were off. It was raining.

But it was raining yesterday. And the day before, and the one before too.

It was dark down in the basement. And pouring outside.

Both emerged up the stairs. Marco first, then cat.

He looked at it.

It no longer had the slightest of limps.

And as they stepped into the fluorescent light of the hallway,

Only his truth got to live on.

They kept each other good company. Always.

The both of them had no idea how long it's been since they have been holed up in there with each other.

The floorboards were damp and moldy. Memories of sunshine were damp and moldy.

It was discomfort and boredom at first. Then it became routine; habit, and finally, it became familiar. It became dear.

And one day, a car drove over. A friend.

Marco never understood why someone would risk going out in this rain at all, but a very insistent friend nonetheless.

As the SUV pulled in, cat figured out what was going on.

A stranger coming in the rain. The cat realised what was happening. That was change, rolling in on four wheels.Nothing had changed in so long that the very idea terrified it.

In a brave moment, more suicidal than valorous perhaps, cat, in a swift motion, jumped in front of the SUV as the sworn protector of the household and everything encapsulated.

Cat was immediately crushed and killed by the car.

Marco didn't even have time to react. It was almost as if the cat wanted to die for him.

This was the truth. For truth was a statement made loud enough; with enough voices behind it, and both witnesses attested to it, this truth alone got to live on.

-the end-