by Elif Savas
steel saw. Every move scratched and pulled the skirt and left deep red slashes on the skin. She tried to gather her courage between the cat's breaks for the next kneading and pain. The cat started to purr and settled its front limbs on her legs, as good as they could fit. He came nearby and wanted to pet the cat, but the cat was not in the mood. It threw its head around and hissed furiously and breathed very heavily until he moved backwards and sat on his chair.
"Wow!" he said. "Wow! You were right! She loves you! I have never seen anything like that!"
She was glad. Not only that the cat didn't kill her immediately, but she heard a human voice, and that proved to her that she wasn't losing it. She was the kind of the person who was not scared of dying in a plane crash, but she was scared of dying from the fear of a minor turbulence. Just imagine the nasty comments on CNN's website about such news! "The lady couldn't bare the shakes! LOL!" Her own feared scared her the most, because it could spiral out of control and avalanche into a panic attack. So she breathed deeply, synchronizing it to the purring of the cat so as not to disturb it. The cat, who could dangle its front limbs over her and still comfortably sit on the floor because of its unbelievable size, closed its eyes and fell into a catnap- reacting to every little sound in the room.
"Please help me get out of this," she whispered quietly. He was staring into the cat's face, lovingly. Her voice caused him to startle. He said: "Soon. Let my love take a nap. I haven't seen her in such a peaceful slumber for such a long time."
Outside turned jet-black with dirty yellow dots for street lights. She waited and waited. When she felt like it was the proper time to ask again, she asked if he could move the cat so that she could go. He said no. She asked if she could use the bathroom and come back again. He said no. She started to cry. Her legs were numb, she was scared, she needed to pee, and she didn't want this beast on her anymore. The fur's smell nauseated her. Her scratches were burning. She pleaded with him, but he didn't give in. It didn't seem like he understood the reasons for her discomfort- he couldn't relate to her at all. All he could relate to was the happy cat.
After a couple of hours, it woke up, stretched its front legs on her legs, than stretched its back legs one by one. It looked around with sleepy eyes, licked its shoulder and saw her again. It seemed that the cat had forgotten that she existed at all, but upon seeing her and smelling her anew, it recognized her again as a great warm toy and started to play with her as if she was a mouse. The cat pulled her limbs, threw her high into the air, caught her before she reached the floor, hid behind the couch and pounced on her body. It licked her all over, bit her playfully, dragged her around the apartment, even brought her nearby the cat litter, placed her carefully in the corner, did its business, and took her up again.
The cat dragged the body for two days until the body looked like a doll that was thrown around one too many times. If you didn't know what it looked like before, you might not even have thought that it was a human body to begin with. When the mess became too much, he giving it scolding but loving looks, took whatever was left away from the cat, put into a garbage bag and took it outside. It took him forever to clean up all of the pieces hidden by the cat all over the house. The cat looked around, howling for its missing toy. The man promised that he would find and bring her another one. Only she should be more careful next time and not tear it into pieces so quickly, because God knows they are not easy to come by.
