by William Cook
I turn and trudge back across the barren fields, between the arable land where I had sown the potato crops and the farm house and remains of the barn. I stop before I reach the front door, steadying myself as I sway in the wind that now rips across the plains. A long mare’s tail of black cloud fills the grey sky, looming ominously above. I look out beyond our property, miles away the low flat-hills and mesas sat hunched like coyotes waiting for prey, but nothing else remains to be seen. Adrift on an endless ocean, the barren fields and plains stretch as far as the eye can see and I feel terribly alone. More alone than I have ever felt in my life. Twenty-three years gone Friday and I have nothing to show for the passing of my time.
I cough a spittle of blood into my fist and open my parched mouth to breathe deeply. We have no water since the fire and the last rain – three long months of rationed tank water and now nothing. The only fluid left on the property is the quarter of potato broth perched on the iron stove in the living room of the farmhouse. I remove my jerkin and drop it on the porch step, my shirt billowing around me like a boat-sail. The weather had now turned and a warm breeze blew strong across the fields, signaling the approach of spring and the summer months to come. The cold frosty nights of the desert plains have been enough to collect some moisture on the angled corrugated iron that I use to syphon meagre, but precious, drops of condensation, but that was about to end.
I drop to my knees, exhausted. My hands are raw and my skin burns from the elements despite my layers of clothing. I have open sores and wounds that don’t heal and each morning I awake to find more of my hair has fallen out in clumps on my stained pillow. My condition has got progressively worse with the passing of time, I was in bad shape and I knew that I didn’t have long to go. When they were alive, both mother and father had sacrificed their food rations for me until their hunger could contain their frugality no longer. The hunger drove Ma crazy, Pa said. We had lived off the remains of the skinny horse that pulled the cart to market for as long as we could. But the meat went bad and made us all sick. Despite the sickness, the meat had been a welcome change from the vegetable broth that we ate morning and night, and when it was gone and buried in the ground I feared the worse. We tried not to notice the proud ribs that jutted through our clothes like slats on a washboard. We tried not to notice our sunken cheeks and rotting teeth – the skeletal limbs that still managed to turn the soil and gather the pathetic crops. We were dying slowly, miserably, and so the flames would’ve held their appeal to my parents, I guess. The flames weren’t for me.
This day, I can work no more. Barely able to stand, I look hopelessly around the bare interior of the dilapidated farmhouse. The last of the tinder sat in the open stove, no flint or match-wood to be had, despite the charred remains of the barn laying useless in the field. I manage to stand, my head spinning with fatigue and hunger, yet still I walk out the front door and around the side of the house to the dead tree in the back yard where I finally collapse. The day’s light is waning, the sun now sinks beyond the low-lying ranges in the distance. The shadows roll in across the plains like an advancing army.
I lay face down in the dirt. I slowly reach out my skinny arms and scoop the dusty earth up in each hand. One for my mother, one for my father, none for my coward brother. The grave mounds had sunk beneath the surface now – the earth cracked and lifeless where they lay beneath, scorched and blackened shells. Both of them lay side by side, Ma and Pa – my brother’s bones lay to the left of my mother. I crawl with the last of my strength and lay next to my father’s side, rolling onto my back. I look through the spindled dead limbs of the tree above me and saw the first twinkling stars appear in the night sky. I shiver as the cold closes in but remain where I lay. My hunger has gone, replaced with an unbearable hollowness that seems to fill my thin carcass with its nothingness. The whispers begin as the shadows creep closer. The prairie wind picks up and the air whistles through the burnt remains of the barn timbers in the near distance. I watch the stars slowly disappear as the shadows swell and grow, the smell of burnt timber still lingers in my nostrils despite the passing of months. The whispers rise in volume. The now familiar whooshing noise of the shadows in the dark drowns everything, as words eerily float around me in the dark.
I can hear my brother’s voice calling me from the shadows. I can hear my mother’s voice, clear and strong like before she got the sickness. My father urges me to follow their voices, to follow the shadows in the night so we can be together once again. And so I do. I let the darkness come into me as the shadows fill my being and for the longest while I sleep, with not a care in the world, until I slept no more.
Choked
Harry awoke feeling more alone than he usually did. He thought that he had managed to overcome the nagging sensation that had riddled his every thought and action since he moved out of his mother’s house five years ago. He would not have moved away from his mother if she had still been alive and he guessed that was the reason behind his anxiety. Mainly because today, Harry’s birthday, was also the day that his mother had breathed her last breath, choking on a sausage at his thirty-second birthday party. He could still smell the party-food and hear the sounds of that horrible afternoon and he still felt a lot of guilt about what had happened to his dear mother.
He shook the bad memories from his sleepy mind and yawned, hesitantly poking a foot out from under the bed covers and then quickly withdrawing it from the cold October morning. He decided that he would call in sick today, just as he had done every year on his birthday since beginning his mundane career as a guillotine operator at a local printing factory. He dragged the phone from the bedside table with a pale shivering hand and dialled his work to let them know that he would not be in today. After procrastinating for another hour lying under the warm blankets, he finally climbed out of bed and looked out of the window. He did not know how long he had been standing there, but the cold had brought him ‘round to the fact that he was stark naked and terribly frozen. He shuddered and wrapped a blanket around his thin self and made his way out to the kitchenette to put the water on to boil.
Mrs Welch was opening the curtains to the rainy October day when she looked across the road at her neighbour’s small unit. She blinked and looked again, sure enough there was a strange, semi-erect ghost of a man, standing naked, staring blankly up at the grey sky. She watched, disgusted, as Harry continued to stare out his window oblivious to his neighbour. My god, she thought, what a strange man he is, yet she continued to watch as he suddenly clutched at himself as if electrocuted and then flung a blanket around his quivering form. Mrs Welch’s breath fogged the cold window glass as she watched him disappear from sight.
Harry took a crap and peeled himself off the cold plastic toilet seat, flushed it and turned the tap on to wash his hands. He looked in the mirror above the sink and depressed himself even more – his eyes looked like terrible and his skin had the pallor of a corpse and to top it all off, he could see his first grey hair. He re-entered the kitchen just as the pot boiled over in a volcanic spray of boiling water, all down the side of his bony legs. He screamed and leapt about, rushing back to the bathroom to stick his pulsing, pink thigh under a cold shower.
“JESUS, JESUS, JESUS . . .” he moaned as he attempted to cope with the agonizing pain which had interrupted his otherwise miserable morning. He hobbled across the bathroom and fumbled with the shower taps, cold water splashing down from the faucet onto his legs.
“Jesussss!” he hissed again, this time a little less fervently as the freezing water from the shower slowly eased Harry’s torment. After a few minutes his leg grew numb with the cold and he turned the shower off, toweling himself carefully as he hopped back into the kitchen to retrieve the damp blanket.
Harry reached out to turn off the element that had now scorched the saucepan dry, but as he approached the stove his legs went from underneath him as he slipped in the water on the floor . . . SMACK, flat on his back, smashing his confused head on the linoleum. Harry scraped himself of
f the floor, leaning against the yellow kitchen cupboards and proceeded to howl, sobbing uncontrollably. Harry determined that this was nearly the worst birthday he ever had.
Harry finally pulled himself together, almost like a jigsaw, slowly putting all the pieces of his fragmented morning and life back into a semi-capable form of manageability. His upper thigh was a bright pink color where the water had scalded him and his head throbbed. He went back into his messy room, shuffling his way through the grocery bills, books and clothes that littered the floor, until he found what he was looking for. He opened the newspaper and scrambled through each page until he came to the classifieds section:
FREE KITTENS, TO GOOD HOME
3 lovely, playful pussies, take 3 or take 1
Ph.777-6667
Harry knew what he had to do – either get some company or go insane and he didn’t feel like going insane just yet, so the only alternative was to get a cat. Harry pushed the throbbing pain of his leg from his brain and dialed the phone number and put on his best ‘I like talking to people’ voice, eventually receiving the address off the old lady on the other end of the line. He put some ointment on his stinging thigh, dressed in his best clothes, shaved, ate and pissed. He had to tape some toilet paper over the burn as the ointment got all over his corduroys. It throbbed like hell as he bent his leg to put his trousers back on again. He buckled his belt and hobbled to the front door. Yes, he thought to himself, today will be the last day that I spend on my own. Repeating the mantra over and over in his mind, he locked the front door and shuffled off to the bus stop.
His leg pulsed on the bumpy bus ride and he felt a sweat break out on his pale forehead, despite the chilly weather. As the journey continued, Harry felt something that he had not felt for a long time. He was actually looking forward to something! He felt good and could not wait to see his new friend. By the journey’s end he had decided that one kitten would be ample – Harry knew that looking after himself was hard enough let alone a little kitten and he wanted to make sure the kitten had the best of care. He was determined to never be alone, ever again.
Harry climbed gingerly off the bus and took the street map from his pocket. He knew the address the old woman had given him was not far from where he was and even though his leg was giving him hell he started walking. He turned the corner of the street and was impressed by the wealth displayed in the architecture of the expensive looking houses. He was glad he had dressed up in his best clothes as he already felt out of place in the presence of such affluence. Looking at the numbers of the houses he slowly edged his way along the street past big stone fences and security cameras. Harry nearly jumped out of his skin as a huge Rottweiler threw itself against an elaborate wrought iron fence – snarling, barking, frothing with guttural hatred as it tried to get to him through the bars. Shaking, Harry quickly hobbled away as fast as his burnt leg would carry him, all the while looking over his shoulder in case the bastard leapt the fence and had him for lunch.
He finally found the address and as he peered through the bars in the entrance gate, still breathing hard and shaking, he was thankful the house did not appear to have any rabid beasts lurking within its high boundary fences. Harry rang the buzzer and a voice answered him, letting him through the gates with an electrical click. Walking up the cobbled driveway Harry was struck by the sheer scale of the house – it was more like a mansion. He felt quite inferior and apprehensive but made his way to the front door and knocked his knuckles hard against it, aware that the pain in his leg had now subsided to a more manageable level.
The butler answered the door and showed Harry to the parlor where a long mahogany table stretched the length of the room – three cages sat upon it. The butler informed Harry that he could have his ‘pick of the litter.’ Upon closer inspection, Harry could see the kittens in the cages were not tabbies as he’d imagined, but beautiful black long-haired Persians. The little kitten in the middle cage mewed and suddenly Harry knew that it was talking to him – it seemed to say, ‘take me, take me . . .’ So Harry chose that one.
The old woman Harry had spoken to on the phone was nowhere to be seen but the butler had been talking to somebody on the intercom in the foyer and he presumed that it was she. He was quite glad not to have to converse with her as he thought she sounded like an old bag. She probably hates cats – Harry thought to himself. She wouldn’t want to talk to a peasant like me anyway. The old rich bitch!
Harry picked up the cage, banging his burnt leg simultaneously and almost making him blackout, causing him to nearly drop the cage as the butler came back into the room.
“Are you alright sir?” asked the butler.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Harry, almost crying.
“Very well then sir. I’ll show you to the door,” said the butler as he ushered Harry back outside and to the gate.
“Good day to you, sir. M’lady said to thank-you for your kindness in taking one of the kittens.”
Harry’s face turned red, feeling decidedly ashamed of his cynical misgivings as he scurried out with the cage down the long driveway and out into the street. Patronizing bastards, Harry thought as he flustered his way back down the street, crossing the road so as not to tempt fate with the beast of a Rottweiler that lay in wait, just waiting to tear him and his new friend limb from limb. Or so he imagined.
On the way home on the bus, something strange happened to Harry. He started to feel tearful and cold, but the strangest part was the feeling of happiness that he got, every time he peeked into the cage to look at his new kitten. By the time that he stepped off the bus, Harry had already thought of a name for his new friend. To Harry, the obvious choice would be to name the kitten after his mother. After all, the kitten had black hair like Harry’s mother and it was his favorite name in the whole world anyway. He had always said that if he was unfortunate enough to have children one-day, he would name his first born after his dear old mother.
Harry didn’t know it but he had fallen head over heels in love with the kitten. So he named her Gertrude and by the time Harry had rested the kitten’s cage on his front doorstep and opened the door, he knew that he was no longer alone. Once inside, the kitten started meowing and Harry realized that he had to get some food for the small feline. He put the cage on the kitchen table and opened the fridge – there were some cold sausages left-over from the previous evening’s dinner, so Harry took a saucer from the cupboard and chopped the sausage onto the china plate. Gertrude smelt the rank sausage and meowed again as Harry opened the cage door and reached in to pull the kitten out for her dinner.
The kitten swiped Harry’s hand, catching a pin-like claw under his fingernail. Harry yelped in pain and proceeded to shout and swear, holding his now throbbing hand under his sweaty armpit. Gertrude pounced from the restraints of her cage and, picking up a piece of sausage in her sharp little teeth, leapt from the table onto the floor and ran between Harry’s pigeon feet into the bedroom and under the unmade bed. Hidden in the sanctuary of a stack of Harry’s worn out playboys, Gertrude devoured the morsel of sausage and started to purr.
When Harry calmed down a bit, he realized that he had over-reacted slightly and became concerned as to where his precious kitten was. His finger was still throbbing but registered midpoint on Harry’s growing tolerance levels for pain. He forgot about his finger briefly as he wondered where Gertrude was.
She might have escaped . . . or been scared off by my shouting, thought Harry, as concern wrinkled his forehead. He fell on all fours, looking, searching under and behind his sparse collection of rickety furniture to no avail. It was then that Harry noticed the front door was open slightly. He looked out the door but could not see the kitten anywhere. He limped into the middle of the street calling out her name (narrowly being missed by a passing car) but nothing. His anxiety levels rocketed as he contemplated that he would never find Gertrude.
Harry bit his lower lip to hold back the tears as he made his way back indoors and as soon as he had locked the door behind him
, he broke down and wailed uncontrollably for the second time that day. Harry felt sick and lay down on his bed even though he did not want to lie down, as he still had to get groceries and do chores. There was nothing left in the house to eat but he did not feel at all like eating, he was heart-broken. Then he heard the meow. Gertrude leapt onto the bed and attacked Harry’s tear-wet face. He grinned from ear to ear as the kitten started to friskily play with the buttons on Harry’s shirt. He stroked the soft fur on Gertrude’s back as the little black kitten purred contentedly – he could feel its fragile little heart beating in time with his own and this made Harry forget about everything else in the world. As Harry identified the beating of his own heart with that of Gertrude’s, he also became aware of the pulsing in his temples that kept pace with the throb in his leg and the fact that he was sweating profusely. Harry pushed his thoughts and the pain from his mind, all else he deemed trivial compared to the sight of his darling little Gertrude licking her silky back paws on his chest. He eased his weary head down onto the pillow and happily slipped into white unconsciousness as he fainted.
Harry woke up with what felt like a snake curling ‘round inside his thin belly. Hungry and confused Harry went to get up from his bed, he was late for work but what Harry didn’t know was that he was three days late for work and as he tried to rise, a sharp pain in his leg made him scream in agony. Gertrude was nowhere in sight but the pain in Harry’s leg was such that he could think of nothing else at that moment.
