November 2022 | Unlikely Friendship

I am the daughter of a vlogger who’s gone by the wayside. These days, you’ll find him drinking speyside at the dive, each round funded by leftover royalties and the occasional child support check signed by his wealthy ex-wife. I sometimes wonder if his followers are gonna follow me? Guess there’s one way to see.

This stuff has to be in my blood. I’ve been followed before I could walk, been content before I could talk. I’ve been pushed before I could shove, been liked before I could even love. Don’t know what it would be like to be left unstalked. But my best guess is unnoticed, uncared for, and a little broke?

I head over to the local library to grab some books on plot development. What? No just kidding I youtube that shit. I go to the library because the kids out front are always selling free pumpernickel bread. I grab a slice. This is completely irrelevant to what I am trying to write here, so I chomp it and pull a gopro from my back pocket. I dart up cracked marble stairs into the brick behemoth.

“Hi youtube, when was the last time you visited a library? Wow look at these ancient manuscripts…” Low flying hyperlapse of cruising through aisle after aisle of towering books. Closeup of thumb running across the spines of some dusty harry potter tomes. Hm. “I remember my dad reading these things to me…” Suddenly, I wonder where the librarians are? I turn my camera up and down the aisle, hoping to get a shot of one shushing me. I guess they don’t do that anymore. I experience a momentary lack of inspiration.

Then, I see him – slumped in a slouchy chair over by the windows. Not a librarian. A viewer, out in the wilds of the world, away from his screen. I approach cautiously. “Hi.” I say.

“Go away.” He says, not even looking up.

“What?” I feel nonplussed. Most people don’t tell me that.

“Get away from me with that…thing. I’m reading.”

“Oh this?” I tuck the gopro in my shirt pocket. “There, is that better?” It’s still recording. I learned that from my dad.

He peers suspiciously over the top of his manuscript. What a grumpy kid! “Do I know you?” He asks.

“Probably! I mean, not everyone realizes it’s me, now that I’m older.”

“What’s your name?”

“Phoenix Smith.” I smile.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t know you.” He says, very unexpectedly. “What is that, some kind of hipster name?”

I can’t tell if he’s playing or not. "It's actually a very appropriate name for me given my current life ambitions..." I notice his book slowly, but definitely, creeping back open. “But hey! Wait! Hey! What’s your name?” I exclaim.

“Nuno-yobee-zwax.”

“Whoa, wow, really? Is that like, some kind of indigenous peoples name?”

Well it’s nice to meet you, Nonoyoby…um…”

He drops the book and smiles with a little too much enthusiasm. “Nun.”

“Nun,” I repeat. He makes me repeat each syllable, until the dumbness hits me. He falls out of his chair laughing hysterically. I laugh with him. It’s my only chance at acquiring this weird follower.

        “About three weeks ago, Mr. J. G. Leland, of Ann Arbor, had an encounter with a rat, and while attempting to kill the animal with a pitchfork, it made a charge upon the handle and fastened its teeth in Mr. L’s wrist. At the time the wound was not regarded as serious, but a week ago erysipelas set in, and Thursday Mr. Leland Died.”

        -The Times Herald, 28 April 1876, Port Huron, MI

        So reads the blurb summarizing with cruel simplicity the relationship between Mr. Leland and Patterstap. First let us address the most obvious mistake–erysipelas is a term applied to a disease only contracted by animals, and on the rare occasion in which the virus infects a human we call it erysipeloid. Erysipeloid being extremely rare, often misdiagnosed, and not a usual cause of death, we can surmise that Mr. L’s death was more likely caused by an often lethal disease known as Rat Bite Fever, or RBF–not to be confused with today’s application of RBF as “Resting Bitch Face”–though it’s been said Mr. L suffered from a form of this as well.

        We must extend him our charity, however, despite his harsh appearance, for Mr. L had very little to be jolly about. He had no family to speak of save for a pettifogging sister who only came around to amuse herself by criticizing him. Children didn’t like him because of his crotchety appearance, and he didn’t like children because they didn’t like him which in turn increased his crotchety appearance. This was a most tragic cycle, for he harbored a secret regret that he never had children of his own. All in all, he enjoyed the company of very few.

        Those close to Mr. Leland only saw him smile when he was eating roast duck, which happened once annually on the first day of each new year. In the year of 1875, he was enjoying such a meal alone, for his usual companions had all died. You won’t blame him in his loneliness for attempting to speak to the rat in the corner.

        “I see you there. Might as well come out.”

        Patterstap, being naturally a bit neophobic, stayed put. 

        “Suit yourself,” said Mr. L, and smiled at his duck. It wasn’t until four days later that he saw Patterstap again, this time nibbling at the edge of his wool rug. 

        “Come, now, that’s not food,” he informed the rat who stopped nibbling to give the man a look in which he tried his best to communicate, “I know that of course, but what am I to do when you keep such a clean house and it’s the dead of winter?”

        Mr. Leland had expected the rodent to scatter when he heard his deep voice–the way the children usually did–and was taken a bit aback when instead he got such a pitiful look from the creature. It inspired him to take a bit of the sandwich he was eating and put it on the ground near his feet.

        It went against every instinct in Patterstap’s little body, but his hunger won out for the moment and he made a mad dash for the crumbs. Snatching the bit of sandwich and running back toward his hovel, he almost dove straight in before remembering his manners. 

        Mr. Leland smiled for the second time that year as his shy little house-guest paused in front of his hole, turned around, and gave him a little nod as if to say, “Thanks!” before skittering away.

        And so began a series of exchanges between Mr. Leland and Patterstap–the man giving out food in good trust that the rat would not try to eat any more of his property, the rat trusting that Mr. L would not slaughter him if he showed himself in the daylight for some food. But as the trust built between them, it was more than the promise of food that drove Patterstap out of the hole. 

        It is well known that rats are pack creatures, but a little less known that if isolated, rats experience depression. Patterstap had lost all his brothers and sisters in the Great Extermination of ‘74. He alone had escaped and found a new home in Mr. L’s warm, dry, small abode after wandering the streets for weeks. It was a feeling of safety in his newfound hovel that kept him from venturing back out in the world, but a feeling of deep loneliness that compelled him to leave his hovel in hopes to interact with Mr. L.

        Within the next year, Mr. Leland discovered the following things:

1. Rats make chuckling sounds that almost resemble laughter when they are happy. And they are ticklish.

2. Rats are clean animals and like to keep their hovels and themselves just as clean as Mr. L liked things.

3. Rats are capable of playing hide and seek.

        Had there been any other rats around, Mr. Leland would surely have felt differently about Patterstap and Patterstap would have just as surely felt differently about Mr. Leland. But as it was, each of their hearts stretched to fondness. Patterstap discovered the following things:

1. Humans will bare their teeth if they get happy enough, but they aren’t that happy very often.

2. Humans eat a lot of food and seem to like food just as much as Patterstap liked food.

3. Humans are capable of playing hide and seek. 

        Mr. Leland had even begun to allow Patterstap up on the couch on certain occasions as long as he didn’t nibble the cushions, and Patterstap allowed Mr. Leland to give him a nice pat every now and then as long as he didn’t rub his fur the wrong way. It was on such an occasion that Mr. Leland’s condemnatory sister unfortunately entered the scene. 

        “Good GRACIOUS what’s this? Is this what you’ve become? I leave off visiting for one month and the place has gone to RATS!” 

        Of course Patterstap made a beeline for his hovel as soon as the woman burst in, and it was a good thing too, for he missed a torrent of abuse that was so fiercely relentless Mr. Leland was unable to put in a single good word for his companion. A second unfortunately timed event began to take place before she finished her lecture, but we must back up a bit to make any sense of it.

        For the past few weeks Mr. Leland had been trying to get his garden beds ready. It had been a harsh winter and a long wait, but now as the ground began to thaw, he could finally begin to work around in the soil with his pitchfork. The six year old boy next door–mischievous by nature–had been watching Mr. Leland at work. The boy often wanted to play pranks on his elderly neighbor but was scared off by the severity of Mr. L’s sour expressions. 

        But as time wore on, the boy gathered imagination and some supplies and made his way over the fence to get at the man while he was busy in his garden. However, that morning Mr. L was in a tremendously sunny mood, for had just gotten Patterstap up on the couch for a nice pat on the head before finishing his paper and heading out to the garden. He smiled and hummed and sang to himself while he worked. 

        The boy was completely disarmed when the neighbor spotted him, smiled and waved. His little heart was so moved in fact by this unexpected display of warmth that he judiciously decided right then and there that the old man didn’t deserve a prank at all, but instead made up his mind to give him a gift. It took a bit of time to decide what to get, for it isn’t easy for a boy that age to have in his possession something that a grown old adult would like. But a lucky stroke of genius allowed the boy to gather a suitable gift, and on the very morning Mr. Leland’s sister intruded, he knocked on the door, interrupting the lambasting woman.

        She answered the door and Mr. L heard it all,

        “These are for Mr. Leland.”

        “What’s in the sack, boy?”

        “Sunflower seeds. For the garden.”

        “That’s not the sort of thing Mr. Leland plants. And I suggest you stay away from here, there’s RATS running rampant like they own the place!”

        And she thought this would teach them both a good lesson.

        One week later, Patterstap had not received any food from Mr. L, let alone any pats on the back. Mr. L spent nearly all his time sulkily lamenting what he considered his only chance to befriend a child lost and fuming internally at Patterstap whom he blamed entirely. He went to till the soil, and consequently tilled his mind (as tilling often does) which gave him perfect clarity of what needed to be done: he must plant all the sunflower seeds and when they sprang up tall with symbolic-gesture gusto, the boy would know he was friendly after all.

        Mr. L. eagerly went to grab the sack out of the corner of the kitchen, pitchfork still in hand, only to find that Patterstap–no longer being able to stand the hunger or tension–had broken open the sack and was making quick work of chewing through all of the seeds. The sight instantly enraged Mr. Leland and without thinking at all he thrust the pitchfork straight down at the fiend-of-a-rodent. 

        Patterstap, offended and resentful from all of the recent completely uncalled for mistreatment from this fiend-of-a-human, ran vindictively up the handle of the pitch fork and bit Mr. L with fierce retribution. I’ll make note here that a rat’s jaw is built in such a way that it can clamp tight enough to exert up to 7000 pounds of force per square inch. When Patterstap’s teeth (whose enamel is said to be stronger than steel that can chew threw glass, cinder block, wire, aluminum and lead) bit through Mr. Leland’s supple wrist, he punctured all the way to the bone. 

        A short time of howling, dancing, shaking, flying, ricocheting, and scampering ensued between the two, followed by several days of quiet, spiteful brewing. While Patterstap aimed to punish through withdrawal deep in his hovel, Mr. L–indignant and humiliated at getting bested by a rat–rancorously mixed poison into a bit of shepherd’s pie and placed it by the hole in the wall. 

        Patterstap stayed comfortably seething in the dark for days after smelling the pie, but eventually (with the help of a gnawing hunger) came around and thought, “He’s making amends. I might as well too.” 

        Mr. L had been keeping a bated watch over the pie with anticipation, but the look of pure gratitude shining from beneath Patterstap’s whiskers as he ate went straight to his heart and melted his malice to benevolence. Though he quickly lept into action and snatched away the pie (replacing it with a less virulent meal for the furry little buddy,) just enough poison had been ingested to make Patterstap very ill.

        As we already know, Mr. Leland was also sick, and though the two had gotten over their spat, the deeper damage had been done. Though Mr. L cradled Patterstap’s body as it twitched and writhed in pain, and though Patterstap burrowed affectionately against Mr. L as he feverishly cried out in bed, neither could save the other. On Wednesday Mr. Leland was in such a bad state that Patterstap lost spirit and gave up. Mr. Leland buried him in the soil he had meant for his garden. After the burial, Mr. L lost spirit, and the Times Herald informs us of what occurred in the end.  

        What was not reported in print, however, was how very strangely indeed, from the spot in the yard where the rat friend was buried, a sunflower sprouted and bloomed proudly that summer.

Cordial, casual greetings, not shaking hands, but a familiar pat on the shoulder instead. Good to see you, you too, how are things? Just fine, never better; weather holding up unexpectedly, isn’t it? Wondering when the cold is actually going to set in. Don’t know, ready for it, but not necessarily complaining either. Work is going fine, not much to report, same as before—wouldn’t mind a new gig—thankful to have what we have, especially in this climate. Couldn’t have said it better. Heard from so-and-so recently? No, busy with the new baby, most likely. The way things go. Wonderful blessing, absolutely. Could never do it, personally, but very happy for them. Likewise!

|

“Did you ever have any prospect of settling down? I can’t imagine you doing it, but hey, who am I to judge!”

“I’ve had plenty of prospects, ha ha. But never had a mind to truly settle down, I don’t think.”

“Are you with anyone now?”

“I am with someone, yes. She’s in pharmaceuticals, so she knows how to throw a rager, let me tell you.”

“Ha ha — I’m not sure I follow?”

“Let’s just say, she’ll bring her work home every now and then. She doesn’t get paid overtime, but who’s counting, anyway?”

“Exactly . . . ha ha. Sure. So, you don’t see yourself settling down with her? Or with anyone in general?”

“She’ll never settle, I can tell you that for free. For me, I’m just in it for the good time at this point. Listen to me — I sound incredibly shallow.”

“No, no!”

“No I for sure do. But, maybe I am. Hey, do you have a light?”

“I—I might in my car?”

“Ha — don’t worry about it. You don’t strike me as someone who would carry a light, even in your car.”

“I do have a pipe collection. But that’s not really something that’s mobile, you know? So, I guess you’re right! I wouldn’t have anything in my car. Sorry I can’t accommodate.”

“No need to be sorry. Actually, look — I had one last match I didn’t see! It’s my lucky day!”

“That’s great, so you don’t need me after all, ha ha. Perfect.”

|

Finished a smoke, do you want to grab a drink? Don’t have anywhere to be, sounds great. Where to? Just around the block there’s a good place. It’s loud enough to not feel too self-conscious. Din of lo-fi and dimmed lights, booth inside, but near enough the door in case another source of fire for one more smoke is miraculously found. One drink goes down with have-you-heard-this-song, and no-I-don’t-think-so, otherwise, people-watching: bar edition.

“So how is work?”

“Fine, but you already asked about that.”

“Yeah I did. Admittedly, I’m out of ammo. Ha ha. Guilty as charged. What do you got?”

“Ha, I don’t have much, either.”

“Okay, how about this: what would you say we have in common?”

“In common? Well, gender for start.”

“That it? What about traits?"

“What a weird question, man, ha ha. But sure, I’ll play. How about, neither of us are settled down.”

“Nice, yep, that—that’s true.”

Letting that sink in while a new drink is poured and another new song starts up.

“What about you, did you have a shared trait in mind?”

“So, I would say I actually think we both have a lot of strength.”

“Strength! Ha ha, okay. I’ll be Hercules and you be Thor.”

“I mean it! I think it’s a real thing for both of us. I’m not talking about physique really, ha ha.”

“A real thing. How do you define strength?”

“Define it?”

“Right — what do you mean when you say strength?”

“I guess, even just thinking about you deciding you don’t want to settle down. You are pretty set on that by the way you talk about it. You’re standing firm — you have strength. Resolve, maybe that’s the better word. You’re resolved.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Putting it that way makes it sound pretty final.”

“Is it not?”

“I think — I think I want to leave room for that to be decided, TBD, as it were.”

“Okay then, TBD it is. Here’s to leaving room for future decisions.”

“Cheers. What about you though? You said we have this type of strength in common, so what are you resolved about?”

|

Turning in for the night. Walked home, wind was stronger than expected. It’s just cold enough to really start drying out the hands—need a lot more of that lotion that really works on cracked skin—can’t find it, will order more tomorrow. Phone battery is almost dead anyway. Feels way upstairs to bed without turning on any lights. Lays down in street clothes from the day, will take them off later, or not, it doesn’t matter.

What am I resolved about?

That question won’t stop pinging around in my brain; it’s like a loose ping-pong ball on an all-concrete floor; I hear it bouncing, and I know what it is, but I can’t see it or catch it for the life of me. Even if I don’t respect his not settling down, I do respect his resolve. That’s the strength. Can’t think of one way that that’s showing up in my life, right now, or ever.

Why did I ask that? What a weird thing to start a conversation on over drinks. Also, he knew I didn’t have any lighters or matches on me, I’m almost sure of it. There was a different strength there that isn’t the kind I’m so fond of. Doesn’t matter though. Why was I looking for things to have in common with him, anyway? Is it that unlikely a friendship that I needed the self-assurance straight from the horse’s mouth? He does kind of look like a horse. Is that even an insult? People love horses; I guess I don’t have an official position on horses. Maybe that’s what I’ll resolve on, tomorrow. I’ll resolve everything tomorrow.

There’s too much tonight to resolve, it can wait until tomorrow. TBD. Here’s to leaving room for future decisions.

*

Ingredients-----------------------------FLAVOR PALETTE

Apple (peeled, chopped)-----------------SWEET

Goat Cheese-------------------------------SOUR

Onion (chopped) & Garlic (minced)---SAVORY

Kale (chopped finely)---------------------BITTER

Salt-------------------------------------------SALTY

Eggs & Splash of Cream----------------CREAMY

Sriracha-------------------------------------SPICY

Directions

1. Get a little pan, and hopefully you have some butter hanging around because if you don't you have to use an objectively inferior oil. Get the onions and garlic going at medium heat until the onions are just translucent and your kitchen smells good enough to make your upstairs neighbors salivate.

2. Add in your chopped up apple and kale until the kale is all wilty shmilty but not so long to let your apples get gushy wushy, then remove from heat.

3. Prepare your eggs by beating them up with a little bit of cream and salt in the glass measuring cup that your prior roommate accidentally left when they moved out to get married or whatever.

4. In the little cast-iron pan that you have miraculously seasoned to non-egg-stick perfection by meticulously--nearly obsessively--tending to day and night, meal after meal, do what you do to get it all slick and ready at medium-low heat. Then pour in your egg mixture to desired level of omelet thickness.

5. Go find a breakfast dad to help you cook it--because no matter how many times you've watched your favorite you-tube pseudo-chef add the cooked ingredients to the eggs in the pan followed by a generous helping of goat cheese when the bottom of the omelet is mildly stiff, covering the pan for just long enough to cook the creation through but not so long that it gets too browned, then fold and flip an immaculate omelet--you know you're not up to snuff to get the timing right.

6. Plate and drizzle a decorative amount of sriracha.

7. Enjoy a meal that can only be described as a delightful cacophony of unexpected flavors that light up every one of your tastebuds simultaneously, causing you to question everything you once believed about cereal being a balanced breakfast.

         “Sorry buddy, I’m allergic.” Alex kept a shoe between him and the black cat while he tried to shuffle through the front door to his apartment. The cat was a relative newcomer to the street, but then again, so was Alex. In fact, he felt he would be more likely to pick the cat out of a lineup than any neighbor. Usually he spotted it poking about the October piles of street leaves when he got home from work. Sometimes it followed halfway up his stoop, but then stopped as if it knew better than to indulge in a hope so contrary to life experience. So imagined Alex, anyway.

         Today was different. The car had barely rolled to a stop when the cat pounced onto his windshield, startling him. “Careful, you might scare someone,” he’d said as he got out of the car. Then he remembered it was Halloween.

         And now, stuck halfway through the doorway, he watched the cat dance frantically around his outdoor leg in a desperate attempt to get inside. “What’s with you?” Alex said.

         He finally slipped through and quickly shut the door, but immediately put a palm to his forehead. His keys were still in the lock. He pulled back a curtain from the front window and saw the cat sitting on the top step, right below the door. But he didn’t need to see; the mewing was loud and persistent.

         He gave it a few minutes. He sneezed. The grey skies began a light drizzle, but the cat didn’t leave. So he braced his leg back into the doorway and cracked it open once more. His hand was on the keys in an instant, but he was shocked to feel claws sink into his shins. He instinctively thrashed and kicked, and then heard a jangle on the pavement.

         Alex recovered and scanned the sidewalk, and there was the black cat. It held the metal ring in its mouth, keys glimmering in front of its inky black fur. Alex stared and the green eyes stared back. A whisper of bitter wind rustled the empty branches overhead, and the drizzle dripped down his hair and onto his scalp. The cat moved first.

         It darted left down the sidewalk in a flash. Alex sprinted after and for a moment thought he might be able to catch it, but the cat was only playing. It weaved easily through a line of oak trees before angling right toward the alley.

         The cat was soon out of sight, but he kept running after it onto the gravel drive, past fences, garages and garbage cans. He slowed to a walk toward the end of the alley, feeling foolish and out of breath. There was a yowl from around the corner where the alley met the road.

         Alex rounded the corner and stopped short. An impossibly tall, lanky man scooped a black fabric bag down over the black cat, and swiftly hoisted it over his shoulder. The man was draped in so eerie a tattered cloth, even for Halloween, that Alex involuntarily stepped back behind the corner fence to watch. The catch had happened so abruptly, and was so foreign a sight that he questioned whether he had imagined the cat going into the bag.

         But when the tall man opened the trunk and carelessly tossed the black bag inside, he heard another yowl— and a metal jangle. The trunk closed with the familiar whump of an old sedan; in this case a bruised purple crown vic. It passed right by Alex, who was still crouched by the fence.

         At the sight of all his keys driving away, he pushed down his irrational fear of the strange man and ran after the car, waving his arms. It didn’t slow down, and he watched it make the next left in a puff of blue exhaust. Alex recalled a long traffic light down that road. He continued to run, cutting across the Hamsfeld Cemetery in a last ditch effort to catch the car.

         As he pounded up the gravel path, he marveled at what he had seen: surely not a loving owner, with a bag and a trunk; and surely not animal control, in a costume and crown vic. He tried to remember the man’s face.

         Alex crested the top of the cemetery hill and saw the green light. The car sped through, but then braked and took a turn he did not expect: Tanner Street, a no outlet drive with nothing on it but the old Vinchester house. He pulled his coat a little tighter. Halloween was really shaping up.

         Tanner Street stretched on longer than he remembered, probably because he had never walked it before. There was no sign of the crown vic, but he knew there was no other exit. A long row of chestnut trees lined the farmland on his right. The left side of the road was a dense tangle of hornbeams and ivy. Then the pavement gave way to dirt, and he knew it couldn’t be much further.

         His phone vibrated. He checked the name and picked up.

         “Alex Alex Aleeeeeex,” the voice ribbed. “Are you still coming tonight?”

         “Dude. I forgot it was Halloween.”

         “No Alex, noooooo. Why do you do this to me? You’re missing everything. I’m a blue-footed booby. Get it?”

         “I don’t think I do.”

         The curtain of foliage on his left gave way to an unkempt yard, where a house loomed out of the twilight. A hint of fog hovered low about the porch, and he heard frogs chirping from a small pond on the right side. The crown vic was parked in front, next to a white chevy van and a rusted red truck.

         “Dude, I’m at the Vinchester,” Alex whispered.

         “I guess that’s pretty Halloween. How’s it holding up?” Alex sized up the property.

         “Three stories of broken glass. Looks just like Luigi’s mansion.”

         “What are you doing there?”

         “A cat stole my keys, and then someone bagged the cat and threw it in their trunk, and drove it here.”

         “Was the cat black?”

         “How’d you guess?”

         “Alex. Aleeeeex. Shelters don’t even let you adopt black cats in October.” Alex scanned the windows but saw nothing.

         “I don’t follow.”

         “You know. Halloween, black cats.”

         “You mean like Hocus Pocus?” Alex asked.

         “No, what? The one with Salem?”

         “I think that’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”

         “Whatever. Witch stuff.”

         “So witches want classic pets?”

         “Not pets, man.”

         Alex looked up. A single shrill voice, or maybe a small chorus of voices, called out an indiscernible word from inside the house. It was dark enough now for him to notice a warm glow from one of the first floor windows.

         “Alex? What was that?”

         “I think I’d better go.” He began to turn away from the house back down Tanner when he heard wild yowling; all the unearthly sounds only a cat can produce. Alex tried to imagine what was happening inside, but couldn’t. All he could see in his mind were the green eyes on his stoop.

         “Alex? You still there?”

         “I’ll call you back.”

         He crossed the yard to the crown vic and peered inside. Books and papers littered the floor, and a yellow film covered the seats. He kept walking and gingerly took the five steps up the porch to the house’s massive double doors. The cat was yowling again, and he took the chance to enter. The door swung open noiselessly.

         The large front hall was extremely dark. He could make out a grand staircase straight ahead with large wooden banisters, but the faint light proceeded from another room on the left. Adrenaline hit his bloodstream and he suddenly felt as if his body was moving of its own accord, as in a vague dream. He drew near the open doorway toward the glow and heard the crackle of a fire.

         There was a stench about the place. The cat protested louder and still more desperately, which was followed by another shrill chant of human voices. Alex gripped the trim on one side of the open doorway tightly, and slowly pulled one eye past the edge.

         Three silhouettes stood in front of a blazing fireplace, surrounded by a ring of candles. One was impossibly tall; the man Alex had seen. Another was inconceivably short, and a third improbably wide. They appeared almost comical as a trio, but the strange tattered clothing no longer looked like a costume in this context, which disturbed Alex. The tall man held up a black bag, which shook and tumbled and meowed.

         Then Alex noticed the dark stains on the floor, and the wisps of fabric all around. Not fabric; fur, he realized. And finally, with horror, he spied a tangled pink lump near the fire, wet and glistening.

         The fat one held out the hilt of a knife, and the short one accepted it. Their lips were moving silently, or else murmuring too quietly for Alex to hear. The tall man reached a gloved hand into the bag, and produced the cat by its neck like a magic trick. The cat emerged resignedly, inexplicably clasping the keyring in its mouth. This was too much for Alex. Its green eyes met his.

         Then he caught a wretched whiff from the fireplace. He sneezed. The three figures didn’t turn to look, but slowly lowered their arms and spoke in unison: “Welcome, stranger.”

         He’d seen enough. Without thinking, he threw the only object he had as hard as he could at the tall man and lunged toward the black cat. His phone struck the man in the temple, and the crack and flinch were enough for the cat to struggle free. It launched from the tall man’s shoulder toward Alex, who caught it halfway across the room.

         The short one and the fat one looked at him with beady black eyes and began to laugh shrilly, before taking sudden steps toward him. The knife caught the firelight, and Alex turned and ran with the cat still in his arms.

         He ran out the front door and down the steps, past the cars and down the dark corridor of Tanner Street. The cat clung tightly to his shoulders. It should have run too, but he was grateful for its presence.

         The laughter echoed in his head. He kept expecting to hear an engine rev and headlights to light him up at any moment, and he braced himself to jump into the thick tangle of bushes if necessary. But he was alone with his footsteps in the dark. He didn’t stop running until he made it back off Tanner, where the streetlights began. He paused, set down the cat and knelt to take the keys from its mouth. It brushed against his legs and walked behind him all the way back to the apartment.

         He swung the door open wide and let the cat in first. It hopped onto the sofa. Alex locked the door and then the deadbolt, and collapsed onto the couch beside the cat. He stroked its back until it stopped quivering. He sneezed.

         And that was the beginning.

last night i stayed up

and listened to the last coals crack and watched them slowly die, and i couldn't help but wonder at how someday i too must subside. and warmth will leave me for the last time and i will be cold, completely for the first time and that will be me

and maybe it will and maybe it won't, but it will be

but if i play my cards right, and fight to end at least most of these regrets before then, i suppose then and only then

death and i could be unlikely friends