Becoming the Story

by L. E. Henderson

little math did not seem so bad. “Yeah, okay.” She rose and took the prescription. “Next week.”

  “Very well. You can pick up the schedule for the course work at the table next to the front door.”

  On her way out the elderly man who had opened the door was sweeping the floor in the foyer. When he saw her, he lifted his head in mild surprise. “Ah, I see that you are leaving.”

  She picked up one of the schedule sheets from the square table beside the door. “Ever heard of the words hello or goodbye?” she said. “Some people find them useful.”

  The man stared silently at her.

  She shook her head, folded the schedule, and stuffed it into her purse. When she opened the door, the sun-warmth struck her face, and she had a thought. After the agony of betrayal, after years of questioning of her self-worth, after all the phobias and destroyed relationships, it turned out that maybe it was all for nothing.

  All for nothing. In the office, this revelation had been a nightmare. But now the words “all for nothing,” said to herself again and again, were like a song, tragic and melancholy, but also lulling.

  There was no good reason to think her husband had ever cheated. No proof. No logic. What had the doctor said? She had affirmed the consequent. She had been doing it all her life.

  She expected tears, but none came. Instead, her tense muscles yielded to the warmth of the sun and the lulling song inside her head. She stepped outside, shut the door behind her, and raised her head, startled to see that the sky looked bluer and clearer than it had in years.

  The Eternal Twine

  Once every thousand years, a cat asks itself a human question. In the case of Muffins, who was cleaning between her toes with her tongue, the question was, “What is the meaning of it all?”

  She had cleaned her front toes the day before, working hard, and they had somehow gotten dingy again. How many times was it going to take to get them clean for good?

  Once every thousand times a cat asks a human question, the universe answers. It had been a while since the universe had responded to a cat, so maybe that is why Muffins became human that day.

  It was January and dark outside. She had was stretched out before the fireplace to ease the chill coming in from a crack in the broken window pane. As she was licking the gaps between her toes clean, she had a new thought: Ow! At first she felt the burning scratch of her tongue, and she looked to see a stretch of raw pink skin where her fur used to be.

  She stopped licking. Her front paw was a paw no longer. She had an expansive, flat palm with fleshy fingers instead of claws. She held them up to her eyes and flexed them, and stared at them in disbelief.

  Meanwhile, the air was pressing down on her like lead, but she tried to stand anyway because she felt she needed to do something. She swooned and clung to the brick mantle for support. It was a different kind of standing, anchoring herself with her hind legs and stretching herself tall and vertical, but for some reason it felt natural, like she had been doing it all her life.

  Desperate for reassurance and possibly a scratch on the head, she made her way into the room where Evie, her servant, usually slept.

  Evie was not there and Muffins remembered that she had gone out. Muffins caught a glimpse of something silver on the wall. She leaned toward it for a better look. Inside the guilt-framed “window,” a strange creature emerged, a girl with golden hair and a delicate nose, large green eyes, and long eyelashes.

  When Muffins stared at the girl, the girl stared back curiously. When in surprise Muffins pulled away, so did the girl. Muffins had no real concept of the word “reflection,” but it was not hard to recognize that the girl in the mirror was somehow Muffins, or at least her mocking twin.

  In either case, the sight alarmed Muffins and she stepped back. After recovering she continued her self-examination. She glimpsed the upper curve of her breasts and the blush on the apples of her soft, firm cheeks. She pulled her lip down and examined her bottom teeth, a white and even row of them. Even as a cat, she had never seen her teeth before, although biting was something she did every day.

  She recognized the form of the girl in the window. Evie, her feeding servant, resembled the golden haired creature, but only roughly. Evie was plumper, with a round face and greying hay-blond hair, and an emerging network of thread-like lines around her mouth and eyes.

  But there was another big difference between Evie and the new Muffins. Evie always had most of herself covered with a kind of loose second skin made of pastel colored linens. These “skins” changed from day to day, so they must not have been stuck to her.

  Muffins looked in the direction of the open closet and saw multiple “skins” that draped from hangers. Muffins did not care about wearing covering per se, but she was ashamed of her hideous new form. She missed her glossy coat of fur and the more hidden her new, raw, pink skin was, the better.

  She selected something violet and floral and slid it over her head. It was far too big for her, and folds of cloth hung loosely at her sides. She did not bother with shoes. She did not think of them.

  Her furless shame hidden, she took a deep breath and looked around. She glimpsed a glass vanity table and found on it an assortment of things that glistened and sparkled, ornate bottles among them.

  She picked up one of the bottles, purple and fat with a narrow neck. It was open, and a strong floral smell came from it. She had noticed that, until now, she had not smelled anything since her transformation, but the scent that came from the bottle was bold. She had seen Evie dab it on her neck so Muffins tipped the bottle and spilled a little above her clavicle, just a drop at first, cold and sweet. She liked the smell so much she splashed more of it on herself.

  In addition to bottles Muffins saw an open cabinet full of sparkling things, long loops of golden “string” with stones brightly colored and almost translucent. When she was a kitten, she could not resist shiny objects or string, and it was hard to resist them now.

  She grabbed a chain which to her was the Holy Grail of twine, shiny and good for dangling. This one had at one end a golden cross shape with a red oval stone set into the center. She held the “twine” up and batted at it a moment, but she did not have as much fun as she thought she would. Still, she liked it and slipped it in her pocket with a sigh.

  She missed her sharp sense of smell. It was like a giant swath of experience had been taken from her. She took the bottle of scent and inhaled it again. The fragrance reassured her and she wanted to have it with her, always, but was afraid it would spill. She saw the cap not far away.

  After a moment of fumbling, she figured out how to snap the cap on it, and she slid the sealed bottle into her pocket. She liked having pockets. Now she knew why people wore clothes.

  Aside from her discovery of shiny and fragrant baubles, she was enjoying the delight of her new, consistently elevated perspective. At her new eye level was a new kind of window. From inside its frame, the pale face of a man stared at Muffins. Or seemed to.

  The portrait had an uneven texture. The man featured in it was immobile, and clothed in something luminously white and draping. His eyes were a deep honey brown, soulful and compassionate. His smooth and shiny brown hair fell below his shoulders. She placed her palm on the face.

  She sniffed the man. The smell was not warm and alive, but harsh and toxic. She concluded that he was not real and lost interest.

  Her stomach began to feel hollow. She thought of her plastic food dish which rested in front of the fireplace in the living room. She moved toward it, saw it with delight, and fell to her knees. It did not even occur to her to use her hands. She stuck her face into the pile of kibble directly and munched.

  Her teeth zinged from the fowl taste and she coughed out the meaty abomination in disgust. Someone must have changed it because before, the food had been, if not flavorful, at least not repellent. She wiped her lips with violent revulsion, trying to remove every trace of the vileness.

  She lapped up some water next to her food dish, but t
he water was dirty and stale-tasting and had bits of fur floating in it. It was clear that she could not stay, or she would starve.

  Something soon occurred that made her resolution to leave inevitable. As she was gagging, Muffins heard a rattle and the main door swung open. Good. Maybe her servant that called itself Evie would refresh her food, which had obviously gone bad. She rushed into the living room, prepared to rub her cheek against Evie and purr, which had always gotten attention before.

  But instead of welcoming Muffins with the usual gentle and coddling voice, the woman stared at her at alarm and dropped the plastic bag in her hand. “What are you doing here?” she said. She backed away. “Is that my dress?” She clutched her purse close to her chest.

  Muffins was frightened too and tried to summon the vocalizations that had always charmed before, in particular a sort of “flirrrp.” Instead, something unexpected came out. “I-I am sorry. Please. The food. It tastes spoiled. I need help, or I shall starve.”

  Muffins was shocked to realize she could speak a new language and a little embarrassed. She covered her mouth and began to tremble. At first the woman gave her what was almost an expression of sympathy. But then her gaze dropped to the dress. Her face hardened. “Get. Out,” she said, “Get out before I call the police.”

  Muffins had never been spoken to in so harsh a