MEMOIRS: Showdown at 6am

I am writing a very serious memoir and am inviting you all to read it. Each chapter will be a frozen moment of momentous occasion monumentally monograpmed into the hearts of my readers, staying forever like a sticky fingerprint left too high up to reach or stretch marks on a lonely woman's thigh. Prepare yourself to be moved like you dun even noe. ferr srs.

Chapter One: Showdown at 6am

May. 22nd, 2009 10:22 am
mood: melancholy
music: My own tears and raging emotions


This morning, after having stayed up all night not writing an essay, I first took my dog for a walk, then returned to the park to have some alone time.

I was not alone.

I knew there was a presence. I could feel it. I told myself some neighbour there had gotten up early for work, and seeing the girl who normally frequented the park at a much later hour, they stared. Most of the people who lived near the park were old and Italian. This situation was likely.

I sat on the swing and separated myself from my environment, as I always do, listening to the poetic words of Mel Brooks, The Lonely Island or possibly Sarah Silverman. I was in the zone, ain't nobody would have messed with me. I watched, almost forgetting I was more than an audience to the Mormon kids across the street, who shuffled single file out of their house around 6:15 to learn about candles and beeswax and lynching. I watched little old ladies walk by and grab their purses uneasily when they saw the raw look of youth in my face. I saw a tired, sad man and his ironically hyperactive dog being dragged by. I saw movements in the grass that i assumed to be rabbits. I spent so long seeing because, I knew the moment I stopped, I would start feeling something looking back at me.

The sun had risen. By all accounts it could have been anytime in the morning; the eery crispness that somehow lingered in morning had passed. I felt I could go home. I felt I would be safe.

I was wrong.

Dead wrong.

Like, sooooo wrong.

Seriously. I was wrong.

There was a feline. It's colouring--I don't remember. It had entranced me with it's eyes. It's eyes. It stood in the centre of a driveway--one I knew it didn't belong in. It stood there, it's eyes unblinking, it's head following me in one swift motion as I passed--completely level. In this moment I knew only one thing: God was dead. In his place, this creature, this cat stood in judgement. It knew all of me. It wanted more from me. It showed no expression--it shared no wisdom while it took all I knew in those few seconds. It encompassed me entirely, seeing everything: My first boat ride. What each Alanis Morissette song ment to me. What I had for breakfast. How I would die. My middle name. My favorite Spice Girl. This creature took me all in, just because it could.

It was like, whaaaaaaaaaaaat.

Shellshock. I kept walking. I could feel it leave me the moment I passed the driveway. My four seconds of self divulging had left me empty, hollow. I was a newspaper without a comics section. I needed filling. But I was scared. I got three houses away from this cat, three houses away before my legs would stop. I turned slowly, to find the cat was still staring at me. I didn't allow it into my mind, I looked away. I knew it could make me give myself again.

I thought I wanted answers. I wanted salvation. I looked into its eyes again. It stared back. I went to it, hoping for...I don't know. What does one seek from its creator? What does one ask of its destructor? I wanted to cry to the cat. I wanted to get high and listen to Queen with this cat. I wanted...love.

To know I wasn't alone.

By the time I was two houses away, I could feel a connection growing. There was a static between us, something different than the first time. This was unapologetic. This was frightening even to the cat.

I was one house away when it happen. The fucker ran off. He came into my life, stole my secrets, and then took off like some sheep being chased by a jaded apostle. Into the bushes and out of my life.

So I went home.