Tossing Cat

Tossing Cat

Click, the fan catches and turns toward my feet.  Beads of sweat flourish in the resulting stagnation.  The alarm clock glows,  just after one in the morning.  I reach for the bottle of warm water and give the trigger a few squeezes.  The mist mingles with sweat awaiting the return of the fan.  Torpid thoughts attempt to decide if this is doing any good.  Should I just keep the fan pointing at my head?  But I’d have to get up.  I bear the decision made back in lucidity.  The fan turns back toward legs and feet languishing in dead air.  It's hot...really hot.  

Not soon enough, but eventually consciousness fades away into heavy blackness.  Chest gently rising and falling in the stillness...rising and falling...inhaling and exhaling...  I can’t breath in, I panic, my heart races, reflexively I reach toward my face and find a fist full of fur.  I rip it away and hear a thump against the wall.  What’s happening?  My hand goes back to my face sticky with sweat and covered with what? What is this? Cat fur?  I get some in my mouth and try to spit it out.  It’s just after two.  I reach for the spray bottle again, wipe my face on a sheet and close my eyes.   My heart slows, my muscles relax, and my breathing becomes even...in...out...in...out.  I take a deep breath and think, breathing is good. Then a faint thought, floating below the others; I hope TC isn’t hurt.

Sputtering and gasping for air I look up, red eyed at the cat dangling in my clenched fist.  Heart racing I toss the cat savagely toward the far wall.  No satisfying hiss or yowl accompanies  the thwack.  What’s wrong with that cat?  Is it dead?  Do I care?  Well maybe just a little.  My thoughts drift from anger and suffocation slowly toward stillness.  Breathing...I’m still breathing...that’s good...sleep is good...

Arrrghh! I awake screaming.  Whack, the cat slides down the wall.  Again!  I get up and go for the grab expecting it to run.  It doesn’t.  it just walks toward me with a meow. I pick it up by the back of its neck and walk quickly over to the open window and chuck it.  Head, tail, head, tail it flies though the night from the third floor game-room where I’m staying this summer.  I don’t bother to watch if it ever pulls out of the spin.  I don’t listen for the splat.  I don’t let myself wonder if that was a good idea.  I’m already in bed.  It’s not as hot.  It’s after three.  I half-pull a sheet over myself.  The fan clicks and whirs.  Wind blows across my face.  I fall asleep.

In memory of TC (Tossing Cat)

Aaron 2010

For history’s sake I’ll mention, in footnote, that this was not the demise of TC.  By lucky coincidence of proximity, the window that TC was thrown from was above Mom and Dad’s deck.  TC probably pulled out of the spin and landed only one story down.  I don’t even think that was the last time I tossed TC that night.  I remember still being awake when next TC jumped up on the bed, and vaguely remember reluctantly closing the windows to get, at least, a few hours of sleep.