The Proverbial Killed Cat

(from Dr. Cotton's class)
I'm not proud of this, it's painfully cliche...I don't do short stories well. But here it is anyway.



The wind tossed my hair around as I set my sights on the green newspaper vending machine across the street, across the raging current of traffic dotted with busy yellow taxis that were resolutely migrating their way upstream. I pulled my hat down more snugly onto my head and wrapped my long brown coat a little bit more tightly around my body. Crossing my arms over my torso to protect myself from the cold and the rest of the world, I stepped intentionally onto the crosswalk. Hurrying across the street, I got an eerie feeling from the cars that waited hungrily for the next green light.
Somehow, I survived my pilgrimage to printed news. I fumbled around in my pocket for loose change, enough to buy what would probably be a biased perspective on reality—recycled ideas to match the recycled paper. Despite this, I do what I can to support this industry, I try to make some kind of statement to society that readers are not extinct and there is still a place for words and graphics other than on a screen. I figure that if all else fails, the crossword puzzles are at least worth my time and money. I only left three blank yesterday and I’ve been dying to see the answers.
A penny, a dime, a couple nickels; everything except quarters is equal in value with pocket lint. Finally, I arrived upon a couple of quarters so I popped them into the coin slot and opened up the machine. To my dismay, there was nothing, nothing but the back of the vending machine. I gritted my teeth. They would be out of newspapers, I thought to myself. Just as I was about to close it and walk away, something caught my eye in the back of the newspaper machine. Thinking it might be a crumpled paper, I reached for it and to my surprise pulled out a smallish black book.
That’s odd. I cracked it open and saw handwriting scrawled across its pages with dates at the top left corners. It was a journal.
I’ve always had a problem with nosiness. I’m one of those medicine cabinet kinds of people—I like wearing sunglasses so that I can watch people without being seen watching them, and sometimes when I’m wearing headphones I turn off the music so I can listen to people’s conversations. It’s something I’ve been trying to overcome. Because of this, I didn’t quite know what to do. This would be a golden opportunity to satisfy my urges of curiosity, to read a journal containing a complete stranger’s most private thoughts. It had, in fact, come to me. And yet, how low could I stoop? In junior high, this would be one of the ultimate transgressions any girl could commit against another. I was bigger than this. It was not my business, and I would never overcome this snoopy habit of mine if I didn’t start making choices against it.
To keep myself from trouble I tossed it back inside and closed the machine. Sitting myself at my bus stop nearby, I was quite satisfied with my own willpower. Good job. Well done. I deserved congratulations. It was better just to let things be, to let life progress as it had intended, and to mind my own business. I glanced at my watch. At least 15 more minutes until the bus. That’s okay, you could use some time just to sit and think.
I was sitting and thinking quite nicely, but through a series of unexplainable events, I found myself having scavenged my person for two more quarters, and was now sitting with the book back in my hands again. I couldn’t help myself.
I opened up the book again and began reading. The handwriting seemed to move across the page in a familiar sort of fashion. It gave me a peculiar feeling that I couldn’t put my finger on. The way the “y’s” looped below the lines and the letters slurred together as if the author could not decide on cursive or print seemed almost recognizable.
I read, and as I read my suspicion evolved into shock and bewilderment as events that were detailed were far too similar to my own experiences to be coincidental. Each name that appeared on the page was that of someone I knew. Each place was a place where events of my own life had once taken place.
The pencil lines sparked my curiosity. Pencil was not my usual weapon of choice with which to assault a page. What if… I fumbled around in my coat pockets, my backpack and the pocket of my jeans until my quest was put to a halt by a man’s voice that came from behind.
“Here, I have what you’re looking for.”
I twisted my head around to see a tall, slender man wearing a long black coat. He was all wrapped up in a scarf and hat, and the only features I could make out were dark eyes and ebony skin. He nonchalantly extended his hand to offer me a classic-looking pencil with a bright pink eraser on the end. Because of the confusion that already surrounded my situation I asked no questions as I took the pencil from the man. I flipped to a blank page of the journal and wrote a single sentence: “I am confused.” I braced myself.
I sat there waiting for several seconds. I don’t know what it was that I was expecting to happen, but whatever it was, it didn’t.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked the man.
“I don’t know. I thought I would try something to…”
“Try again,” he said with a smirk scrawled across his mouth.
“Try what? All this is crazy and irrational and I…”
He cut me off mid-protest with an upraised palm. “Ah, but if I witnessed the scene correctly, you’re the one who couldn’t let it be. Think of it as an assignment. What do you do if you make a mistake on a test?”
Normally I would have taken offense to the manipulation of a complete stranger, but I could not help but feel a secret gratitude for any amount of direction in such an oddly ambiguous situation.
I thought for a moment and then flipped the pencil around in my hand and placed the eraser to the page. I rubbed out the word “confused” and replaced it with the word “angry”. Suddenly it was as though a switch had been flipped in my emotions that caused me to become engulfed by a fury, like rushing waters that had exploded through a broken dam. This unexplainable rage came over me for no apparent reason and I was left with the possibility that it had something to do with what I had just written. Quickly, I erased the entire sentence. The rushing waters inside me stilled and I quickly returned to my placid state.
The man who had been standing behind walked around and sat himself on the bench next to me. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”
I was flabbergasted. “I don’t understand. Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded.
The man chuckled to himself, an action which irritated me all the more.
“Hey, I don’t know who you think you are, but I don’t appreciate being the butt of this joke, whatever it is.”
He turned to look at me. “Well, perhaps you should appreciate it. People don’t come upon an opportunity like this everyday. And who I think I am is of no consequence. Perhaps you should be asking yourself who you think you are. Or, you could just read about it,” he said, with a grin and a nod of his head toward the journal I was holding. “Then again, be careful. You never know what you might find.”
His smug attitude nearly provoked me to tell him what I really thought of him, but I reluctantly decided to bite my tongue. I started flipping through the pages of the journal and witnessed the unexplainable records of my life, chronicled by my own hand. It made me feel quite uncomfortable, a naked sort of feeling. I flipped to a recent date, February 4 of this year, three days ago:
I lost my cell phone today. This disconnection from my digital leash leaves me feeling helpless. The more dependent we become on technology, the more I wonder what people ever did without modern conveniences. What if someone needs me? What if I get lost somewhere? It’s quite inconvenient, but an interesting reminder that as much as we try to control our lives, our environment, our reality, we are not God and are left at the mercy of things bigger than ourselves. Profound thoughts, all because of my lost cell phone. Alrigh, God, I get it. I’ve learned the lesson. Can I have my phone back now?
I turned to the annoying man of mystery. “It’s talking about my lost cell phone. This just happened a few days ago. These are my thoughts, this is my writing, but I didn’t do this. You seem to be so knowledgeable, so why don’t you let me in on your little secret.”
The man was gazing off into the distance, watching the traffic pass.
“Or not, you know,” I said, my tone a little sharper, “no big deal. Don’t inconvenience yourself.”
He sighed and shook his head, “Some things aren’t meant to be explained. Some things should just be accepted and experienced.” His low, leathery voice seemed to calm my racing thoughts despite the lack of explanation.
It was an odd experience in and of itself finding this book in a newspaper vending machine, but even more strange was meeting this man I’ve never seen before who had this insight into me, into my life, and into this paranormal event that had imposed itself upon my day. Yet, for some reason, my irritation was subsiding and I found myself warming up to him. There was something soothing in his voice, something in his demeanor that reassured me.
“You could keep exploring,” he said, “but again, be warned.”
Why does he have to be so cryptic? I sat and pondered for a few moments, the book in my lap and the pencil in my hand. Again, I put the eraser to the page, the February 4th entry. I rubbed vigorously until every trace of writing was gone and the page was left blank. A startling tickling sensation caused me to flinch and let out a squeak of surprise. This sensation continued, a tickling, something like a buzzing.
It was vibrating. Immediately I recognized what was happening. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my ringing cell phone. Incoming call: Mom. She would have to wait.
I stared with disbelief at the phone in my hand. “Ok, this is getting too weird.”
The man smiled at me. He began rubbing his hands together, “Weird, or exciting? You can’t deny that this is much more interesting than your typical morning.”
I couldn’t keep myself from smiling in agreement. “But if what just happened really happened, I mean, if I now have my phone after I just…”
He looked intently at me saying nothing, although the look on his face encouraged me to continue my thought. “Well, then I can just erase things and rewrite them, and they really happen. I can rewrite my life.”
The man nodded.
“Wow. This reminds me of something one of my English teachers used to say. ‘There’s no such thing as writing, only rewriting.’ Perhaps he had it more right than I ever realized.”
The man laughed, “Apparently so. So, what are you going to do now?”
What was I going to do now? This was not an experience for which I had planned, nor did I have any examples to follow. I continued to read the journal, and to add yet another twist to an already tangled plot I realized that the dates recorded extended past the current date. I began to read tellings of events that had not yet taken place. I read the beginning of the entry that would have been today’s:
The bus was several minutes late today. How am I supposed to portray a prompt, professional persona when I am at the mercy of the city’s flawed transit system?
I glanced at my watch which read 7:31, already a minute after the bus’s scheduled arrival time. Things were getting more peculiar with every passing moment. I continued reading. Tomorrow I would have an unexpected meeting with my boss: a promotion. Friday I would find twenty dollars on the ground. This coming weekend the concert my friends were planning on attending would be cancelled.
“It tells the future too?” I exclaimed.
The man was silent.
I kept reading and was suddenly taken aback by an entry dated sometime next week.
One never expects these things to happen, and when they do, the world seems to freeze around you. Suddenly all the fluff blows away and all that matters is what really matters. Mom’s accident has really shaken me. The hospital is a cold place; she doesn’t belong here. The beeping rhythm of her heart rate monitor seems to taunt me as I sit waiting, not knowing what’s going to happen.
Immediately the trite predictions I read previously paled in comparison to this foreboding prophecy. “Oh God, oh God,” I said to the man. “Did you know about this?” My tone had escaladed from perplexed wonder to panicked distress. I felt sick to my stomach.
“It’s time you stop questioning me and start answering yourself. For some reason fate has whispered a secret in your ear. With knowledge comes power, but as they say, ignorance is bliss. I tried to warn you.”
I was so overcome by everything that my eyes welled up with tears. “So what should I do?”
The man shrugged. “The choice is yours. Keep reading and risk reading more than you bargained for. It also seems we’ve reached the conclusion that you have the option of making changes. And then there’s the third option.”
“What’s that?”
“What you almost did already. Walk away.”
He was right, I almost did walk away. I should have walked away, and now I was the proverbial killed cat. Now I knew of my looming fate, or rather that of my mother, and I was faced with a decision.
I watched an elderly man slowly crossing the street at the intersection I had crossed earlier to get to the newspapers and my bus stop. Time waits for no one and neither do people who live inside of its constraints. The cars had the audacity to honk in objection to his slow pace, even seemingly inching up, anticipating a green light. They had no respect for him and the countless slippery seconds that had slid through his wrinkled fingers, seconds they had yet to experience. Time had slowed him down, passed over him like a storm cloud and left him drenched by its debilitating effects. He acted in this same drama in which I would soon be performing, whether tragedy, comedy, or both. Indeed, he had weathered the storm, and now he was crossing the same intersection that I had crossed in front of the same line of ravenous traffic. And he didn’t have a magical black book.
I turned to say something to my mysterious acquaintance, but to my surprise, he was nowhere.
I was puzzled, but it didn’t matter any more. I knew what I had to do. I saw my bus coming and gradually slow to a stop in front of me. I flicked out my watch. 7:37. I laughed to myself as I rose, leaving the troublesome black book lying on the bench. I did not want to be a confidant of destiny any longer; that was not my job. It was none of my business.
I boarded the bus and situated myself in a seat next to the window, breathing a sigh of relief. The hiss of the air breaks and groan of the bus’s tired engine signaled our departure, and I looked out the window to see a young man about my age who had just seated himself on the bench. He had picked up the book and the look on his face morphed into that of baffled confusion as he was leafing through the pages, just as I had. I smiled as we drove away.
The woman across the aisle from me was folding up a newspaper she had been reading.
“Excuse me, are you done with that?” I asked her.
She looked over at me. “Yeah, you want it?”
“Anything interesting?”
She shrugged and handed it over. “Eh, same old same old.”
I grinned. “That sounds perfect.”