“When?”
“About ten minutes ago. I sent a text to you and Brenda and when,” the doctor’s voice cracked as she spoke, “I didn’t get a response from you…”
I’ve seen the doctor break the most difficult news to heartbroken and devastated families with stoic professionalism but was sure there were tears being shed on her phone right now, and it broke me.
I was crying. Again.
Jinx began wriggling restlessly.
I released my grip on him and, instead of leaving, he climbed softly onto my shoulder and began to lick my tears and I hoped the doctor had one of her pets nearby for the same soul-saving treatment.
Dr. Stewart sniffled, then said, “You should probably call the others, or at least message them as soon as possible, if you’re up to it.”
“Yeah, definitely. I’ll do it now. Thanks for calling.”
“See you soon.”
Without missing a beat, I called Brenda.
Before the first ring could be heard, she barked, “What took you so long?”
And that’s when Jinx seemed to decide he’d had enough and meandered off, likely to plot new mischief.
“I’m sorry, I had no idea. I was just on with Dr. Stewart—she cried!”
“What? No way.”
“I know, that’s what I thought.”
“She’s not the only one, y’know? I’ve had tears running down my face so long that Mynx has been mauling me for five minutes straight.”
“Oh no! You named her!”
“I know we’re not supposed to, but what was I going to do? Though after the way she was behaving this morning—it’s why I couldn’t be there to open the hospital! She tore up things like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Really? You should’ve seen Jinx this morning. He—”
“Ha!” Brenda cut in, “You named him, too.”
“Yeah, yeah. But I don’t call him Jinx to his face. Heck, more often than not, I’ve referred to him as Hellcat. Especially with everything he was doing this morning. It’s why I was still home and—” Right then it hit me.
Brenda gasped.
I knew she was thinking exactly the same thing I was but it all seemed too impossible.
Too big of a coincidence.
A friendly rhythmic knock at the door saved me from saying it out loud and appearing the fool.
“Brenda, someone’s at my door. Can I call you back?”
“Did you call Angela?”
“Not yet, you’re the first.”
Her voice was quiet but deliberate. “Uh, you know she has the other cat, right?”
“I know…”
“And she didn’t make it in either—”
Another knock at the door that sounded like the beat to some all-too-familiar song. Tap, tap, tap-tap-tap!
“Can you call her for me so she’s not left waiting any longer?”
“I can. But, Helen, call me back. We need to talk more about this.”
“Do we?”
In the pause, I could imagine her upper lip wrinkling as it so often did when she was in thought. “Maybe not.”
“I’ll call you after I get the repair people in.”
She laughed. “Good. Mine are already on the way.”
“Crazy! ‘Bye.”
We hung up as I made my way to the door, where Jinx was sitting as politely as any dog hoping for its favorite treat in obedience class.
“You’re a weirdo,” I said, picking him up. “Who do you think it is now? The landlord to give me grief about blowing the power? Someone about the broken window?” Peering through the peephole, my words fell short.
“Good morning, Miss Bliss,” said Mr. Yee. “Am I too early to pick up the kitten?”
“No, not at all. Actually, your timing is perfect…” And then the awkwardness hit me as questions flooded my brain.
How did he get my address?
Why is he here when we were supposed to meet at the hospital?
Why now? The timing was literally perfect.
“Miss Bliss?” His voice was soft. Calm. Even warm. It was just another way this man, who had to be more than sixty years old, reminded me of my grandfather. His gentle demeanor. His clear love for animals.
I peeked out at him again to see his clean-shaven face with a ready smile and sparkling eyes. He wore a long, buttoned-up gray overcoat and carried a black walking stick with a small yellow topper that I could see was a spherical happy face.
While it was unusual for me to have someone come by to visit—friend, family, or otherwise—I had little reason to believe him to be a problem. “Uh…we were supposed to meet at the hospital.”
“Yes. Yes,” he said. “And I apologize for the intrusion here, but with the accident, I felt you might appreciate my coming by and saving you the trip.”
“Yes, that’s…very thoughtful of you.”
And then it occurred to me that maybe my problem wasn’t just the surprise of having a stranger at my door but that I wasn’t ready to give up Jinx, especially so suddenly. I had been counting on the ride together to the hospital. Spending some time there, having some treats, and playing with a toy before Mr. Yee would show up to ease him from my arms.
It may be wrong to feel this way about an animal I was just supposed to care for and give back but those feelings were real.
“Y’know?” asked Mr. Yee. “I could contact the other family and ask for a little more time. Would that work better for you? Maybe meet up again in a few days at the hospital or a place of your choosing?”
“Yes!” I blurted out, squeezing Jinx tightly in my arms.
I could see the grin on the man’s face as I continued to speak. “Uh, I mean, yes, that would be good if they’re okay with it.”
“Most excellent,” he said, raising his walking stick up and making it nod my way. “Please give the kitty my love and I’ll be in touch again about arrangements.”
“Thank you, Mr. Yee. I certainly will.”
Pursing his lips together, he began whistling an upbeat, happy tune, one that felt quite familiar but I could not place. I watched him leave for the elevator with a small skip in his step as Jinx began to nuzzle into my neck.
Mere moments after Mr. Yee left, the rattling noise in the vent started up again. This time Jinx responded in a much more reserved manner, gently wriggling his way free to perch upon the scratching post with eyes fixed on the opening.
I grabbed a chair, carefully slid aside the clips holding the vent cover in place, and my jaw dropped.
Inside was a circlet only slightly larger than my wrist, made of tightly twisted string with each string a different color. Red, threaded through blue, black, and white into what I quickly realized was a collar. Attached to the collar was a thin piece of golden metal in the swirling image of a flame with four letters imprinted on its surface; JINX.
Standing there, the object dangling on my fingers, I wrestled with the meaning.
I wondered at the possibilities as the collar fit perfectly on Jinx’s neck.
And I accepted that, for whatever reason, this just felt right.
When my ex left me five months ago and took our cat with him I had sworn I would stay guarded and only do foster care because the pain of inevitable loss was too great. In this moment I was reminded that there was another side to the coin, the feeling of being rescued, and it brought great love and peace.
Five days later, the hospital was still under repairs when, as expected, we received a call from Mr. Yee.
He left a simple message on our voicemail to let me know that the prospective family for Jinx was happy to let him stay with me if I was so inclined. If I would rather return my little hellcat, I could call Mr. Yee to arrange a pick-up.
I was overjoyed and primed to celebrate.
I scooped Jinx into my arms and turned on the radio to Tom Jones singing the classic, “What’s New Pussycat”, an upbeat, happy, and strangely familiar tune that set me spinning and dancing with the Jinx I would always love
as my little good luck charm.
C.J. Lazar was born and raised in Steeltown, Ontario, Canada. A childhood of constant motion led to a love of adrenaline and excitement that requires constant creative outlets. It is that love which fuels character driven stories spanning multiple genres.
Find out more at amzn.to/3lxEa5M
51
A Cat Named Felix
by Stephanie Mylchreest
Imprisoned with nothing but a stray cat and a voice through the wall to get her the hell out.
In the hazy minutes between wake and sleep, her mind played tricks on her. The bare walls no longer imprisoned her alone. Instead, a small snow-white kitten curled against her stomach. Her mother’s voice, trickling like running water, whispered in her ear.
Experience taught her to relish that half-awake state. If she focused on the memories instead of letting them drift through her as flotsam drifts on the tide, they disappeared with a hiss. This left only the heavy, restless night filled to bursting with the sounds of their dark transgressions.
They’d locked her up in Hell, and if she didn’t escape soon, her soul was damned for all eternity.
Alone, memories incinerated. She pulled the thin sheet up to her chin. In the darkness she waited for day to come.
Finger by slender finger, the sun peeled back the blackness. The light came through steel bars over the small window. It was so high that she couldn’t see out even if she jumped or dragged her thin mattress to the wall and folded it to stand on. The little window remained out of reach. The outside just out of sight.
As light pushed its way through the bars, persistent, predictable, it revealed the room’s familiar dirty corners and stained walls. Her hand wafted through the air, sending the motes whirling, then froze several inches from her eyes. The muted sunshine filtered through the pine tree against the outside wall and revealed the details of her pale, peeling palm and dirty nails.
She knew it was a pine by the smell, fresh and intoxicating as it wafted into her cesspit of a room.
A noise outside. A faint mewing. The cat was back.
“Are you awake?” she whispered.
“I’m here,” came a voice, dry from sleep.
She moved closer to the wall that divided them and rested her head on its eggshell surface. It was thin enough that she could hear him walking around, could guess his position in the room based on slight variances in volume. When night fell, his deep breathing eased her anxieties. And in the daytime, his voice was her lifeline.
“I can hear the cat again outside,” she said, one eye on the open window.
He grunted, disinterested.
Silence settled over her room as she listened for the animal. The sound of pine branches moving against the wall, and then more distant noises: voices and the faint hum of an engine. Was it the wind rustling? Or the weight of the animal moving about, spurred on by hunger or curiosity?
Is he listening too?
Her focus returned to him. She thought she could hear him breathing. “I’m hungry, do you think they’ll be here soon?” she asked. Crossing and uncrossing her legs, she shifted uncomfortably and tried not to think about the aching pain in her stomach.
He coughed. And then he coughed again, a slight rattle underneath the sound.
He can’t get sick. Maybe they hurt him worse than usual?
He cleared his throat and spat.
“Should be soon.” His reply was curt. Maybe he didn’t want to speak. The thought clenched her chest and a trembling hand splayed over her heart as she worked to calm herself.
Unable to help herself: “Are you okay?” She heard the pleading in her voice and knew he could, too, but they stripped her vulnerabilities naked the minute they pushed her into that room.
Alone, incarcerated for no reason other than their opposition to the government’s attack on democracy, on their freedoms, they only had one another. There were others locked up in the compound, surely. But she hadn’t seen them. She had seen little of anything other than those four walls.
He sighed. The sound of him moving closer.
She often wondered what he looked like, but every time she went to ask, the words froze in her mouth. He wouldn’t tell her his name. He said it was better that way. So she never told him hers. When was the last time she spoke her name out loud? It seemed silly not to know his name, his face, after everything they’d shared.
Fingers raked through her hair, now hacked short and full of lice, and she felt a moment of shame. Once, she had been beautiful.
Once, a million lifetimes ago, her auburn hair in a topknot bobbing up and down with every excited step through Central Park, a boy had kissed her in the brilliant sun.
At least, she thought it happened to her. It could have been someone else.
Days stretched endlessly, blending seamlessly from one to the other and punctuated only by his voice, their sporadic and violent intrusions, and the cat.
One day, a black face with large yellow eyes peered at her from the window, slender body pushing between the bars’ narrow gaps. She coaxed the cat down with a little gruel and gentle hands and soon the animal became a daily visitor, often dropping into his room, too, for some extra love and maybe a lick of food.
Lean, with a glossy black coat and a pink nose, the cat was used to humans. “She’s too friendly to be feral. She likes us,” she said through the wall.
“What’s her name?” he asked. She could hear the joking in his voice and it buoyed her. He was in a good mood and the feeling seemed contagious.
She thought for a moment before replying, “Faith.”
“I like that,” he said. A smile played over her lips as she stroked newly named Faith, who purred like an engine and curled into a ball on her mattress, promptly falling asleep.
A while late, footsteps. “They’re coming!”
Desperate hands lifted Faith to the window, the cat somehow understanding that the room was no longer a haven. Violence was coming. The cat slipped away between the bars, between the cold gusts of wind bringing with them the promise of winter.
Faith curled against her abdomen, burrowing under the threadbare sheet and soaking up her warmth. Shivering against the frigid air, she stroked the cat and wrapped her entire body around the small animal. Against the backdrop of the rain pounding outside, fragments of memory pushed their way into her mind as she existed in that hazy, half-awake state.
Harsh banging reverberating through her home. Both her parents dragging her into the basement as heavy boots stomped overhead. Discovery, fear, rough hands pulling her mother from her frantic fingers.
Pain blossomed in her chest as the images grew too terrible, and she forced herself awake and into a sitting position. Faith glared at her with haughty, sunflower eyes and arched her back in a stretch, before crossing the room to groom herself.
Outside, the rain continued. It had been raining for a week, the wind spraying her with a cold, wet blast multiple times an hour. She was so cold that the tips of her fingers were white, the life frozen out of them.
You’re never getting out of here.
Images from their propaganda machine played through her mind like a freakish house of mirrors, and anguished flames replaced her chill. Burning alive from the inside out, there were a million ways for her to end her suffering, even with the few meagre items they’d allowed her.
“Hey, kid, are you okay?” She startled at the sound of his voice. Her sobs must have been too loud. Her fingers pinched the skin on her legs and she stilled, a sorrowed breath hitched in her throat, her mouth not capable of speaking. “Kid?”
Faith pattered closer, rubbing a soft head against her leg, before stalking to the corner of the bed.
His voice again, “Kid?”
Somehow, he pulled her up and out of her own head.
“I’m here. I’m sorry. Sometimes it’s all just too much.” Her words quivered, and she held her breath as she waited for his reply.
“I know,” he said. “This place. It
has a way of sucking every bit of your soul until you don’t know if you’re even really you anymore.”
In a low, soothing voice, he told her The Plan.
She sat in the cold and damp, arms wrapped around her knees, as he explained the complicated locking mechanism that closed their doors. “I have what you need to jam the lock,” he said.
“What about your door?”
“It’s fine, I have two,” he replied. “We just need to get you this piece of metal somehow and then coordinate so we can escape together.”
As he explained how she could use the pin to wedge the door mechanism so it wouldn’t lock completely, the hellish flames that just minutes before threatened to destroy her, tempered. His words were a life raft, a safety harness, a medevac winch that pulled her from the very darkest part of the inferno and saved her life.
She had been close to death. But new, warm blood spread through her chest, sending fresh oxygen to her starved heart, as he laid out details of The Plan. It would be easy, he said. She closed her eyes and felt a thin veil of hope envelope her.
Hope.
Such a fragile, beautiful thing.
Once she was out of the building, he told her to go hard right and run. He said dense pine forest surrounded the place, and once she reached the trees, it would be difficult for them to find her.
She had faith that The Plan would work. Escaping together, he would show her the way.
It would be easy.
“Come on girl, come on,” she coaxed. Faith stared at her from the top of the window and for a heart-lurching moment, she thought the cat might disappear through the compound and into the forest. Holding the gruel up as high as she could, the cat’s whiskers trembled before finally leaping down beside her.
On her knees, she found the patch of matted fur behind Faith’s hind leg and eased out the metal pin. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and she blinked to clear them.
“Did you get it?” His voice was terse.
“She brought it to me. She did it.” Grateful hands stroked Faith’s scrawny frame.
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