In a Mist

by Devon Code-mcneil

  “When I got to the store I picked up the milk I needed and a lot of other things I hadn’t intended on buying. I looked out the window before I left, and the coast was clear. But by the time I reached the corner, my entourage had reassembled. I would have tried to lose them, but I had weighed myself down with a five pound bag of potatoes. I glanced over my shoulder frequently. And there they were, the three of them. Lurking. Between fence posts and beneath parked cars. Never more than twenty feet behind.”

  The waiter arrived and set down a fruit cup and two grapefruit halves in front of Jacob.

  “Thank you,” said Jacob. The waiter nodded and left them. Jacob took up his spoon.

  “And when you got home from the grocery store?” said David.

  “I decided I would no longer leave my flat,” said Jacob.

  “For a whole month?” said David.

  “But it’s been so humid,” said Anna.

  “Stifling,” said Jacob. “The warmest September in twenty-two years. I certainly thought about going outside. I became restless after the first few days. But then I received another acceptance letter.”

  “And you couldn’t risk it,” said David.

  Anna placed her hand on David’s.

  “You know how Jacob feels about cats,” she said.

  “Yes,” said David. “I know. Four separate acceptance letters.”

  “In the same week,” said Jacob.

  David took a sip of his coffee.

  “David’s been going through a bit of a dry spell,” said Anna.

  “What did you do up there all month?” said David.

  “I kept writing,” said Jacob. “Sending out submissions. One story a week.”

  “You’re very brave,” said Anna.

  “But how did you mail them?” said David.

  “The woman who lives below me,” said Jacob. “With the accent. The Italian lawyer. Remember, David? The dark-haired woman.”

  “I remember,” said David. “Go on.”

  “Her name is Sophia,” said Jacob. “She took pity on me.”

  “You couldn’t have told her,” said David. “She wouldn’t have believed you.”

  “I told her I was ill,” said Jacob, “that I could barely make it down the stairs. The odd thing was that after I spoke to her, I did feel a bit feverish, slightly delirious. I’ve felt that way ever since. Sophia was very compassionate. Sometimes the people you least expect, who seem indiff erent to you otherwise, can surprise you.”

  “She mailed your submissions,” said Anna.

  “I would leave them in her mail slot,” said Jacob. “Early Monday morning. She would drop them in the mailbox at the end of the street on her way to work.” He ate a spoonful of his fruit cup.

  “How do you know she mailed them?” said David.

  “I would watch her from my front window,” said Jacob.

  “Would she bring you groceries?” said Anna.

  “Several times a week,” said Jacob. “Chicken soup mostly. And Sicilian fig pastries. Whenever I saw her I would put in a request for fresh fruit. But she could never seem to remember.”

  “How do you know it was your submissions she was mailing?” said David. “If you left them in her mail slot, you can’t be sure.”

  “Why wouldn’t she mail them?” said Anna.

  “Hmm,” said Jacob. “I’m afraid David does have a point. Theoretically, she might have switched the envelopes. Perhaps she kept my stories for herself, revised them, even. Sent them out pseudonymously. It is possible. But what you have to understand is that my most recent material is rather unconventional. Highly fantastical, characterised by a good deal of looming menace, these stories I’ve been writing. I can’t imagine someone reading these stories and not evincing some sort of a tell-tale response, giving themselves away when they delivered my fig pastries and chicken soup.”

  “Lawyers are good bluff ers,” said David. “It comes with the territory.”

  “No doubt,” said Jacob.

  A slight breeze ruffled the napkins on the table. Jacob noticed that the sky had darkened considerably. He took a last spoonful of cantaloupe from his fruit cup before moving onto the grapefruit. As he ate he looked at goose bumps forming on Anna’s downy arms. She shivered, a pouting expression on her lips.

  “There’s something I don’t understand,” she said. “When you woke up this morning, how did you know the cats wouldn’t follow you anymore?”

  “An excellent question,” said Jacob. “All I can tell you is that it has to do with the dream.”

  “Yes?” said Anna. She looked at Jacob expectantly.

  “But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself,” said Jacob. “Before I tell you about the dream you must know that yesterday, for the first time since May, since graduation, I was unable to write.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” said David.

  “It used to happen to me all the time,” said Jacob. “More often than not I would be entirely blocked. I used to come to you for advice.”

  “I remember,” said David.

  Anna crossed her bare legs and smiled at Jacob.

  “But then you found your stride,” she said.

  “I spent last week working on a new story,” said Jacob. “But by the weekend I was desperately behind schedule. I couldn’t seem to figure out an ending without repeating myself. Nothing worked. I couldn’t get anywhere. It’s a miserable feeling.”

  “You’ve reached the end of your creative cycle,” said David.

  “That occurred to me,” said Jacob. “But it didn’t make me feel any better. Eventually I gave up and went to bed.”

  David looked away and Jacob followed his gaze to a tall, thin woman with a heart-shaped face seated alone on the far corner of the patio.

  “You had this dream,” said David.

  “I couldn’t sleep at first,” said Jacob. “And when I finally did I dreamt of two little English girls in frilly summer dresses and knee-high stockings.”

  “Are you sure you want to tell us about this dream?” said David.

  “How old were the girls?” said Anna.

  “One was about nine or ten years old. The dark haired one. The other one was younger, with flaxen hair, but I didn’t know that at first because she was holding me in her lap.”

  “Oh,” said Anna.

  “I think we’ve heard enough,” said David.

  “David,” said Jacob, “You know me better than that. It wasn’t that kind of dream. You see, I wasn’t human.”

  “What were you?” said Anna.

  “A kitten,” said Jacob.

  “Cute,” said David.

  “We were all on a gingham blanket on a cliff overlooking the sea. There was a wicker picnic basket and the dark haired girl took out a miniature porcelain tea service and they had tea and soda crackers,” said Jacob.

  “Too young for tea,” said David.

  “It was a dream, David,” said Anna.

  “No, you’re right,” said Jacob. “It was apple juice in the teapot I think, and a saucer of milk for me.”

  “How thoughtful,” said Anna.

  “I couldn’t resist,” said Jacob. “I squirmed out of flaxen hair’s grasp and lapped up the milk as if it were the best thing I’d ever tasted. And the girls spoke to one another.”

  “What did they say?” asked Anna.

  “You know, it’s funny,” said Jacob. “I usually don’t remember anything about my dreams. But I recall this one so vividly. The dark haired one said, ‘He really must cease these tiresome short stories.’”

  “Come on,” said David.

  “What did the blonde one say?” said Anna.

  “She said, ‘They are getting rather repetitious, aren’t they?’ And then the dark hair said, ‘Quite.’”

  Anna laughed with delight. She reached over and hit Jacob gently in the arm with the back of her hand.

  “They didn’t really talk like that,” said David, “like characters in a Victorian novel. Lewis Carroll.”r />
  “Why not?” said Anna.

  “Here’s where it gets interesting,” said Jacob. “By that point I had finished the milk and I lay there on the blanket in the sun, looking up at them sipping their apple juice. And dark hair said, ‘It’s high time he attempted a novel,’ and then, ‘It better be a good one too, for we both know what must come to pass upon its completion.’” Jacob paused for a mouthful of grapefruit. David looked at his watch.

  “Then flaxen hair suddenly looked very solemn,” said Jacob. “And she reached over to where I lay in the grass and she picked me up and placed me in her lap.”

  “I’ll bet she did,” said David.

  “David,” said Anna.

  “She looked at the dark-haired girl,” said Jacob, “and she stroked me between the ears and said, ‘Surely kittens would survive?’ And dark hair, without skipping a beat, she set her teacup down on her saucer and said, ‘Not even kittens. And besides, there would be no one left to cuddle them, or change their kitty litter, and if there was any milk for them to drink, it would surely be radioactive.’”

  “Huh,” said Anna.

  “That’s the last thing I heard them say,” said Jacob. “Because right after that a butterfly fluttered dangerously close to the edge of the blanket.”

  “A monarch butterfly?” said David.

  “A Brown Argus,” said Jacob, “ known to lepidopterists as Aricia Agestis. Recognizable by the white fringe and orange markings on the top of its brown wings.

  “Impressive,” said David.

  “I wasn’t able to control myself,” said Jacob. “I leaped out of the little girl’s lap and caught its wing with the tiny claws of my right paw, and then sank my kitten-fangs into its thorax. Then flaxen hair screamed and I woke up.”

  “I don’t buy it,” said David. “How did you recognize the butterfly?”

  “The last time I saw Sophia—” said Jacob.

  “What has she got to do with this?” said David.

  “Sophia knows I like to read,” said Jacob. “The last time I saw her she took it upon herself to provide a book, along with my rations. A 1977 edition of Flatman’s and Alfin’s Field Guide to the Butterflies of Western Europe.”

  David raised an eyebrow.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” said Jacob. “At any rate, it helped me fall asleep.”

  “And this morning?” said Anna.

  “This morning, despite having slept for no more than three hours, I woke up at dawn, entirely refreshed, knowing three things with absolute certainty.”

  “Which were?” said Anna.

  “First, that my fever, which I believe to be psychosomatic— a kind of self-imposed penance for my fib to Sophia—had finally broken. Second, that one unlikely epoch had come to its conclusion and another had begun. In other words, that I could make a breakfast date with my closest friends, whom I had not seen for far too long, that I could come to this café and sit on its patio entirely without fear of feline menace. I happened to pass the tabby on my way here, as a matter of fact, and he just lay there on the sidewalk, sunning himself, unmoving, indiff erent to my presence.”

  “And third?” said Anna.

  “Third,” said Jacob, “that the strangely bitter taste in my mouth was one of the most unpleasant sensations in recent memory, and had to be dealt with immediately.”

  “What a story,” said David.

  “Well done,” said Anna.

  “Thank you,” said Jacob.

  David took a sip of coffee.

  “Hold on a minute,” he said. “I’m not saying I buy any of this. You’re a very imaginative guy, Jacob, we all know that.”

  Anna looked at David and David looked Jacob in the eye.

  “Let’s just say I’m willing to play along,” said David.

  “I’m all ears,” said Jacob.

  “Let’s say,” said David, “for the sake of argument, let’s say there’s some kind of correlation between your publications and the behaviour of the neighbourhood cats.”

  “Let’s,” said Jacob.

  “And that the little girls in the dream,” said David, “the nymphets, have something to do with this correlation.”

  “What are you getting at, David?” said Anna.

  “I’m suggesting,” said David, “that the fact Jacob arrived here today, unaccompanied, isn’t all that comforting.”

  In the periphery of his vision, Jacob noticed the waiter eying their table. Anna frowned at David.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “In the dream Jacob was a cat. He confronted his fear.”

  “Yes,” said David. “Good for Jacob. But I’m talking about what the little girls said. About Jacob writing a novel and the end of the world.”

  “Assuming the girls were talking about me,” said Jacob.

  “Who else would they be talking about?” said David. “It was your dream.”

  “In that case,” said Jacob, “this is a very serious concern.” He looked toward the darkening horizon. Cumulonimbus clouds had entirely obscured the sun.

  “Let me ask you something, Jacob,” said David.

  “Of course,” said Jacob.

  “Why do you write?”

  Jacob stared down at his plate and placed one grapefruit rind on top of the other, so as to make a whole, deflated grapefruit, sitting in a puddle of grapefruit juice.

  “Because I suppose it’s the only thing I know how to do,” he said. “I used to believe what we were taught in our seminars, that I was serving some important moral purpose, trying to teach myself the proper way to live. But the last few weeks have tested my sanity.”

  Anna placed her hand on David’s. She looked at Jacob.

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  David withdrew his hand and flagged the waiter.

  “He has to make a choice.”

  * * *

  Jacob was soaked to the skin by the time he returned to his flat. He took off his wet clothes and hung them in the bathroom and brushed his teeth. Then he flossed and rinsed with antiseptic mouthwash, the bitter taste still lingering in his mouth. He stood in front of the mirror, gazing at his reflection. He hardly recognized himself. His cheeks were sunken and his nose appeared more aquiline than ever before. His complexion, which had always been pallid, was now almost ghostly and the contrast with his raven-hair and freckles was startling. He left the bathroom and picked up a t-shirt and a pair of jeans from the floor, sniff ed them and then pulled them on and sat at his desk. He looked out the window at the street below. Sodden oak leaves drifted in puddles and collected in gutters. He had planned a trip to the laundromat that afternoon but the rain showed no sign of letting up.

  His ancient Smith-Corona rested on the desk before him, safely beneath its matte black cover. It occurred to him, that unlike his previous neighbours, Sophia had never complained about the noise of his typewriter. He decided he should give her a thank-you gift, a fruit basket, when he returned her book. Perhaps she would be touched by his gratitude and invite him into her apartment. But he thought this unlikely. He thought of Anna in the morning sunlight, recalled the way she looked at him when she listened to him speak, holding her coffee cup in both hands, her lips pursed. He thought of David’s analytical mind, how it had impressed him when they had met the year before in their modernism seminar. He thought of the night he had first introduced David to Anna, and how the two of them had been inseparable ever since.

  Then the idea came to him. He got up and walked away from his desk and by the time he had paced the length of the room three times the idea could no longer be contained within the confines of a short story. It was a narrative unlike any he had previously conceived, one that could only be adequately expressed through copious detail and characterization, comprised of events that spanned considerable distances in space and in time. Sentences and chapter outlines composed themselves in his head. But he could not bring himself to put them on paper. A moral impulse quelled his writer’s instinct. He was left wi
th nothing to do but heat a can of chicken soup and wait for the rain to let up.

  * * *

  The rain did not subside until late the next morning. Jacob had two Sicilian fig pastries for breakfast before dragging his soiled clothing to the laundromat. As he thumbed through an old National Geographic and listened to the rotations of the double-load dryer, the novel continued to compose itself in his head. By the time he returned home the pavement had dried and the afternoon shadows had begun to grow. He changed into clean clothes, put away his laundry, and descended the stairs once again. As he walked the six blocks from his flat to the grocery store he passed two little girls in t-shirts and jeans playing hop scotch on the sidewalk. They sang a nonsense song as he passed by and eyed him warily.

  He took his time in the grocery store and found satisfaction in remembering precisely the items he required: a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, six oranges, four grapefruits, four limes, a can of beans, a package of frozen peas. It was not until the walk home that his mind began to wander and he found himself immersed once again in the environs of his unwritten novel. It was dusk by this time and when he rounded the corner he did not notice the tail of the Siamese as it flitted beneath his feet. But he heard the feline shriek and the hiss that followed and he felt the pain as the claw penetrated his sock and grazed the flesh of his ankle. The over-filled paper bag slipped from his grasp. Citrus fruit bombarded the sidewalk and rolled in every direction. He glared at the Siamese as it retreated beneath the underside of the nearest stoop. Then he looked down at the dented can and the upside down egg carton at his feet, resting in a puddle of translucent ooze.

  He stooped to gather the salvageable groceries into the damp bag and continued on his way. As he crossed the street he looked back and saw the silhouette of the Siamese emerge to lap the egg from the sidewalk.

  The pain in his ankle had not subsided by the time he reached his flat. He dumped his groceries on the counter without bothering to put them away. He went to the bathroom and from the medicine cabinet he took a bottle of peroxide and liberally daubed his ankle. Then he sat himself at his desk, removed the cover from his typewriter and began to write in earnest.