Leonard (My Life as a Cat), Carlie Sorosiak [7 ebook reader .txt] 📗

me up. There were bright lights in the examination room, sharp smells, and Johnny Cash playing quietly on the intercom: a gravelly song about walking a line. You may have heard of this particular phrase: that someone is “going through a lot.” As if “a lot” is a direction, something to pass over, like wading through water. This is what I remember. I remember the song—and a pair of humans hovering over me, poking and prodding this new body of mine. Swatting them away was useless, even with my claws out. My reaction time was slow, my vision foggy.

“He’s pretty young, judging by his teeth,” the vet said. “Maybe two, three years old. You say you just adopted him?”

“Yes,” Olive said, at the same time Norma added, “Not quite.”

The examination table was silver. The wallpaper was striped. A handwritten sign told us THE DOCTOR IS IN. And I lay there, blinking slowly, as the vet threw around words like microchip, vaccinations, and panic attack.

I have blocked out so much of what happened next, but I recall thinking a great deal about immortality. On Earth, I was vulnerable. On Earth, everything was temporary. The average human lives 28,835 days, a staggeringly small number. It’s only 5,475 days for cats.

“But he’ll be okay,” Olive asked, strain in her voice. “Right?”

The vet said I needed rest. I needed calm. As a rescue, I was “going through a lot.”

That night, I opened my eyes to see particles shifting above me. And for a moment, I thought I saw an infinite wilderness of stars. I thought I was on my planet—safe, wrapped in the numbness of calm. But it was just a trick of the light, just a bit of dust, nothing like home.

No one talks to cats about immortality. No one questions dogs about the shortness of their existence. But humans, they are always wondering what it might be like, to live and live and live. I understand this now—where they’re coming from. After the vet, I was paralyzed with fear in the beach house, afraid to move from my fluffed blankets. Every noise slicked back my ears. What would happen if the walls abruptly collapsed? If I slipped on a banana peel, as human cartoons so often suggest?

It’s not like I had days to waste. At the end of the month, I would either make it to Yellowstone or remain stuck as a cat—without hands, without the hive, and, most importantly, without my immortal life. For the record, cats do not have nine lives—only one—and I should have spent this one traveling. I should’ve been searching for bus routes, plane tickets, waterways of the Carolinas. Anything to get me out.

Instead I sat. And I shook. And I watched Home and Garden Television for the entire next day, listening to Olive tell me about the animals in the marsh: mice and mud crabs, spoonbills and white shrimp. “You have to watch out for the gators,” she said, and it struck me that life on Earth could look extremely alien, with large teeth and green scales. And humans were scared of extraterrestrials? Of us?

In that time, I also learned how to use a litter box, after sifting through pellets with my back paws, giving the impression that I knew exactly what I was doing.

But I was petrified. That should be said. I was deeply petrified: by sounds, by movements, by every jolt of the wind. I was even careful in this new litter box of mine, the safest of places, where I should’ve felt most secure—surrounded by nothing but the soothing scent of pine.

We watched E.T. that night. I like to think of this as fate, and not the whimsy of Monday evening broadcasting. After dinner, Stanley heaped himself on the linen rug, while Norma and Olive curled in matching armchairs. And I, well, I couldn’t decide if I should stay in the room. When Olive introduced E.T. as “an alien film,” my ears flattened. Would she draw the connection between this creature and me, if the idea was right in front of her?

In the end I decided to stay, because E.T. the extraterrestrial appears nothing as I do. No fur, no tail. Was it startling to see an impression of aliens on Earth, bulb-headed and spiky fingered? Sure. But they did get my love of flowers exactly right. When E.T. revived the dead chrysanthemums, my tail twitched excitedly against the rug. I was so absorbed that, for a split second, I even forgot about my mortality. Olive knew most of the film’s lines, mouthing along with the words, and I kept peering between her and the movie, as E.T. levitated balls in a bright room—showing the humans his planetary system, his world.

Just then, Olive glanced down at me, a hint of a smile on her face.

And it struck me that maybe I should smile back.

Person-to-person interaction depends on knowing when to smile. It’s about waiting until the exact right moment and unleashing the appropriate grin. There are so many variables. Do you smile with or without teeth? How much should your lips stretch? And how do you recover, if you get it wrong?

So, from a safe position on the rug, I gazed up at Olive, stretching my lips as far as they would go. Something told me I was missing the mark; it felt strange to expose my teeth so flamboyantly to the air. And Olive was leaning closer, tilting her head to the side.

“Are you okay, Leonard?”

I’m disturbed by how simpleminded I was. Cats rotate their ears, vibrate their tails, rattle their chests; they do not smile.

Olive stared at me for a good minute, a searching look in her eyes. If Norma hadn’t asked if she wanted popcorn, calling her into the kitchen, I’m not sure what would have happened. Would she have confronted me? Asked more questions?

Are you really okay, Leonard?

Leonard, what are you?

I had to be more careful, more catlike. So,