Goodnight Cat

“I’m not ready for this to end, I still feel like I’m dreaming.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t want to wake up.”

I watch her above me in that dark bus, the passing street lamps lighting her face, broken in time like flashes in a photo booth. Fey takes my hand in hers and starts to write something, biting her lip as she digs the pen into my hand. She pulls out her hand from a glove with the fingers cut off and puts it on my hand, “never look at what I drew.”

The bus stops, she can’t stop crying. Her green eyes search mine, looking for something I can tell her to make her feel like this isn’t just a dream.

“I’ll see you again” I tell her with uncertainty and hold the back of her neck. Her lips meet mine and I feel myself realizing that this is the last time I’ll feel love. The lights in the bus turn on, people start getting their things. Fey’s friend grabs her sleeve and pulls on it, “come on we have to go.”

“Wait” Fey says and grabs her purse. She pulls out a Polaroid camera and takes my picture. She kisses me one last time and she’s gone.

I watch her on the sidewalk, her brown hair a mess in the wind. She’s holding herself. I know she feels loneliness for the first time just like I do. She mouths the words, “I love” and the bus drives away.

I’m sitting in the freezer section of White’s Grocery, staring at the pears which are also sweating. An old guy with the name tag “Shane” pushes a mop by. I keep telling myself that I’m here in Aliceville, Kansas for a funeral. An open casket funeral and I’ve never seen a dead person before. But what I’m focusing on more is that I haven’t seen my older sister Sarah in forever. And now not only do I have to see a dead person, but also her for the first time in six years.

I buy a Sprite and stand outside on the curb watching for my taxi. I count the shopping carts that wheel by aimlessly, without an owner, wandering the empty parking lot like ships on an asphalt sea.

I picture what Sarah would say right now. She’d laugh and ask me if I remembered staying up past midnight watching cartoons and talking about everything and nothing at the same time. The playground downtown that no one ever went to except for us. Graduations. After school, all the nights we stayed up late talking on the phone about our problems long distance. At the time we seemed to be the only ones either of us needed. She was the only one I ever told about Fey. The only one that seemed to understand. She’d tell me that she died too young. She’d ask me if I remembered her at all. I don’t.

The taxi pulls up and I get in. Looking at the crumpled receipt with the address of the funeral home on the back I tell the driver where it is. He tells me that it’s in the middle of nowhere. The drive is long and hot on faux leather seats. I spend most of the time staring out the window at the plain country of nowhere. We get there in the afternoon. The funeral home is a small white building, the paint old and crumpling. I can tell that it used to be someone’s house, they had converted it. Broken steps lead up to the door, Christmas decorations from whenever hang for eternity on the frame. The door is wide open and the sound of fans can be heard from inside. The floor is sun stained linoleum, cracked in the middle, the cracks spreading to the carpet. People stand around a table of food, some walk up and down the aisle in the living room to the coffin. I don’t even look in that direction.

People I don’t know. People I’ve never met. I shouldn’t even be here. My sister had six years to start her life over and she probably didn’t think of me once. I take a seat in the living room, I don’t look at the coffin. A man in a collared shirt walks up to the podium and starts giving the eulogy. I can’t listen to this shit.

Upstairs is more quiet than the mess of strangers downstairs. I wash my face and stare at the bottles of Burma shave.

“So I guess I ask now if you’re not one for funerals.”

I turn, a girl in her late 20’s, short black hair with her hands in her pockets stares me down in the doorway.

“Yeah” I say “I don’t really know anyone down there.”

“How did you know Sarah?”

I pause, “Just a friend.”

She looks at me cockeyed, “you don’t sound like you’re from around here, you must have come quite a ways just for a friend.”

“You don’t sound like you’re very Kansas yourself. How did you know her?”

“Just a friend.” she says, and smiles, “do you work?”

“No, just got out of college really.”

“Girlfriend?”

“I’m married” I smirk.

“Kids?”

“Lots.” I say

She taps her black stiletto heeled shoes, “so do you mind?”

“What?”

She motions with her little finger towards the bathroom.

“Oh, yeah. Well, I should get downstairs” I say

She smiles, nods and closes the door behind me.

Most of the people have already left when I go down. Since mom and dad died two years ago, no one felt the need to stay and comfort anyone. I make my way to the kitchen and steal a bottle of Chianti someone had brought as a gift. I drink from the bottle and make my way into the living room. It’s silent except for the unbearable hum of 50’s fans.

Somewhere in my mind I still think this is a joke. No way can my sister, whose old photos decorate our parent’s house be lying in this dilapidated funeral parlor. She hasn’t sat still one moment of her life. I tell myself that I’ll walk down this aisle and see that it isn’t her it’s the wrong person, I’m at someone else’s funeral. I tell myself I’ll apologize and leave. I tell myself that my sister is alive and rebelling against something somewhere. Sarah is starting her career as a journalist in some foreign country. She is engaged to be married right now and she’s calling me to tell me. She’s going to tell me that everything is okay and we need to get together soon to catch up on all the time lost. Life is everything she’d expect it would be and she didn’t waste her life in school. She didn’t waste her life writing. We’ll laugh about this some day, I tell myself.

I stare at her small body in that violet dress, eyes closed. Six years older and dead. All I can do is stare. I feel like apologizing, I feel like saying sorry to someone, anyone. I am so fucking sorry. These people were here for you and I feel like a total stranger. Maybe I never knew you Sarah.

Then I see it, something written on her arm. I reach, softly pulling her sleeve up. Right there, in the empty living room, in front of her coffin I begin to cry. A tattoo of my name.

I leave the bottle and walk outside. I sit on the broken steps and stare out at the emptiness of Kansas. The girl from the bathroom sits down next to me, waving her face with a playbill.

“You drove?” she asks.

I look up, tears in my eyes. “Taxi” I say.

She rummages in her breast pocket and pulls out a pack of Marlboro, she offers me one.

I motion no.

“Where are you headed after this?” she asks

“I don’t know” I say, looking at my shoes “I was going to take a train to New York.”

“When?”

“I don’t know” I say

“I hate indecisive people. You have an idea, do you not?”

I stand up and start walking down the road.

“Sure you don’t want a cigarette?”

I whip around, “I’m really not in the mood to explain myself, or better yet tell you why my personality lacks decisiveness. It was great meeting you. And no I don’t want a god damn cigarette.”

“How about a drink then?”

I ignore her and keep walking.

Her voice is soft now in the wind, “not even for Fey?”

I stop walking. The girl walks over to me, playbill under her arm. “I’m Rebecca.” she says, and reaches out to shake my hand.

“How did you know Fey?” I say, not shaking her hand.

“I was your sister’s room mate for four years, she told me all about her. How she was the only girl you felt that you ever loved. You met her while you were a transfer student in Quebec, the last time you saw her was in New York. Going to New York by train? That’s very cute.” she says, and puts out her cigarette.

I can feel my face go cold, “it’s terribly cute.”

“And by the way, Sarah wouldn’t be very happy right now if she knew you didn’t tell me you were her brother on the day of her funeral.” she says.

“I’m a horrible person.”

Rebecca sighs, “we tracked her down” she says

“What?”

“We found Fey. It took us two years of searching the New York phone books, placing search ads, calling everyone of your high school friends” she laughs.

“Why did you do this?”

“It became our little obsession. It pretty much consumed our lives for a couple of years.”

“You cared that much about this girl?”

“Not about her, dammit. I know you don’t know how much you meant to your sister.” she says.

Rebecca digs through her purse, “also, she left you some things you have to remind me to give you.”

“What did she say? I mean, when you found her?”

“We met her in Phili, I mean, that was pretty much a halfway between our college and hers. Anyway, we had coffee. She’s beautiful and funny and I can completely see why you wasted your life longing for her.”

“I didn’t.”

She crosses her arms and stares at me like I’m her kid.

“Did she say anything about me? Does she have a boyfriend? Did she move on?” I say all at once.

Rebecca laughs, “She did have a boyfriend at the time. She did remember you, she made it very clear to not tell you anything about her, but give you this.”

She pulls something out. Something old and wrinkled and worn by the sun. Something that looks so familiar yet I wouldn’t have thought I’d ever see it again.

“Do you know how long I’ve had this in my purse?” She hands me this folded thing, and I open it. A Polaroid picture. Me, staring back at myself from years ago, tears on my neck, a hand holding mine. The only relic to a past that I can’t let go of. My eyes large and wet, smiling like that moment would never end. I turn the picture over and read in blotted green ink “you.”

I’m silent most of the way to Rebecca’s house. I wonder why she’s living out here in the middle of nowhere but I don’t ask. Dolly Parton plays quietly on the radio, I wonder to myself if it can be played any other way. She stops and we get out. She lives in a small farm house, I can tell that the nearest neighbor is probably two miles in any direction.

“This is Jacky” she says as a little girl runs out the front door “and if I can find him, Harold is the boy.”

I sit down on the couch, from her in the kitchen slamming drawers, “how do you feel about instant Folgers?”

“Sure” I say, looking out the window, “what did my sister say about me, exactly?”

“A lot. Throughout college and grad school your life story was my constant audiobook. She left you some money and a letter. She was going to give it to you… but then the accident happened. She wanted to help you find Fey.”

She hands me the drink, “I added a little something extra to lighten our moods”

I take a drink, it bites my throat and warms my insides. This is my first drink in months. I lean back in the chair, feeling the memories coming back like opening a photo album after a house fire.

“Tell me more about Fey, how did you two first meet?”

“My parents sent me to a transfer high school in Canada” I say and take another drink.

“I was standing in a train station when I met her. It was our first break during winter, my friends were talking to the conductor, asking him where this city was that my friend Alex thought he had heard of once. There’s about a thousand places that Alex thought he had heard of once in his life. We never did find any of them. I went and bought coffee and sat down on a bench, watching the trains stop and the people get out. This girl sat down next to me.”

I take another drink sinking farther into the chair. As I talk more, the less I’m here in Rebecca’s living room. Farther back, lost in thought, back in that Canadian train station years ago. It’s colder than I remembered.

I drink my coffee and cringe, I always forget the cream. The girl sitting next to me reaches over, palm open, wearing gloves with the fingers cut out. I look and see a handful of Half and Half’s.

“Here” she says, “don’t look so sad.”

“Do you always take more creamers just in case some poor bastard forgets them?”

“No, I just like the way they taste. And they’re free.”

I smile, “I’ve never thought about drinking them straight.”

She drinks her half and half, “glad I turned you onto it.”

Another train stops. A skinny man wearing a top hat stumbles off the train obviously drunk. He walks over to the conductor and begins screaming at him in a language the conductor clearly doesn’t understand. We both laugh.

“I don’t know how to repay you for saving my morning.”

She looks me in the eye, “then you’ll forever be in my debt” she says and stands up “you owe me one coffee creamer, you better have it next time I see you.”

“Next time?”

She smiles and gets on the train.

Rebecca sits on the coffee table, staring at the old picture of me.

“What do you think is going to happen?”

“I just want to see her” I say “I don’t expect anything from her.”

“What do you want to say to her?”

I stare at her. She sighs and disappears into the back room. She comes out with a thickly stuffed envelope. The top has been ripped open and the address on the front has been crossed out so many times that it’s impossible to read.

Rebecca takes my glass, “here’s the money your sister left you. It took us four years of penny pinching to save up this much. Because of you I’ll never eat Ramen again.”

She puts it in my hand and give me a forgiving look, “take this and get a plane ticket home. She’s just a girl. You won’t live happily ever after.”

Rebecca walks me to the door and hugs me again, “I don’t want you to do this. I never thought it was a good idea, but this was your sister’s wish. And this is what she thought you needed.” she hands me a business card.

“On the back is the address to her apartment. Don’t go to it” she turns the porch light on and shuts the door.

5:43

Indecisiveness. Seven Deadly Sin number eight.

There’s this old wino in front of me in the bakery this morning. It’s around five and I’m tapping my foot to the Journey song they’re playing. He can’t decide between a maple donut or a fresh croissant. I am so fucking late for work.

I sip my coffee on the subway and wonder why the bar I work at would need to be opened so early! Oh fuck me that’s right it’s Christmas! I’m not going to be decorating a beautiful tree with spray canned snow or wrapping presents. I’m going to play therapist and mix drinks that have silly names so that people feel better about their lonely holiday when I announce, “who ordered the screaming orgasm?”

I’m twenty minutes late already and instead of calling my boss to let him know why, I’m writing in my journal.

~Fey

7:24

Oddly enough I like my job. I like being the last one in the bar at closing time. I’ve always loved “night life”. It’s the loneliness in public places that inspires me. I guess it inspires me to try to find loneliness everywhere.

Tonight I mixed this guy a scarlet martini and he took my hand when I put it down. He asked me why I have a black cat tattoo on my right hand. I must have stayed silent for a minute or two not knowing what to say. I told him I got it while I was drunk and have no clue what it means. I smile, that stupid fake smile. That holiday Thanksgiving dinner smile when your grandpa makes a dumb joke and you die a little inside.

I need a drink.

~Fey

8:05

Dinner.

Dinner with Jeff at Pete’s China house.

Sitting silently with someone you have nothing to say to.

Jeff, older than I am and loved by my father. A jock in high school, a stock broker now. My father practically swoons over Jeff, I think he’s seriously considering ending his forty year marriage with my mom to have an affair with him. If you notice a ripped out page in this journal it used to be a sketch I drew of the two of them. And a goat.

I don’t know how I feel about him, especially sitting across from someone you call your “better half” as he tells an anecdote he heard today in the office.

He laughs and laughs, slurping his soup. I cringe.

Denial. Seven Deadly Sin number nine.

~Fey

3:20a.m.

Dear my ominous all knowing diary,

All I have to say is that it’s 3am and I’m at home.

Dear diary, I need change.
~Fey

It smells like fermented bottles of whiskey and cheap cigars in here. The liquor store owner is older and skinnier than I am. The ring of his spurs on the back of his mock cowboy boots jingle as he reaches for a bottle high up on the shelf.

The guy puts a bottle of Skyy orange vodka next to my Jack Daniels, “37.50! You havin’ a party tonight?” the guy asks, nudging me a little too hard.

“No” I say putting down two twenties, “I’m just an alcoholic.”

He laughs and gives me my change.

I take a cab to the airport and spend $475 from the envelope on a one way, non-stop flight to New York. Seats go to their locked and upright positions, the cabin pressure is stabilized and I drink myself to sleep aboard flight 284.

—

The movie is long and boring and some old guy is smoking, smoking, smoking in the front row. Big white clouds cover the screen, Fey and I go out the emergency exit. The alley outside is cold, empty, lined with bricks and lit by the moon. I see her breath under her gray and black striped scarf, I can see in her eyes that she’s smiling.

Fey pushes me against the wall hard, “you know” she says, “you still owe me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Thought I’d forgotten?”

“Maybe” I say stepping closer to her, I feel her breath on my face.

She pushes me against the wall again, “pay up cat.”

“Cat?”

“That’s what you are now, you belong to me.”

I reach into my pockets and pull out lint, I hold my offering out pathetically.

She stares at the lint then slaps it out of my hand. She moves the scarf down from her mouth. Her lips are thin and cold, turned white by the frozen alley, “you still owe me.”

Rain begins to fall, we run under an awning. I shake off the rain trying to hide my shivering, Fey pulls her arm out of her jacket and unzips it, she puts it around me and holds me. I feel her heart beating and nothing else. The rain is loud, but farther away than it’s every been.

—

I’m half asleep and getting over a hangover when the plane banks in what should be New York. A New York without skyscrapers and an all too small airport. The pilot’s voice booms through the cabin, “I apologize on behalf of American Airways, but due to weather in New York we will have to be landing tonight in Pennsylvania.”

Everyone sighs at the same time, I reach under my seat and take out the whiskey. The guy sitting next to me watches me pour Jack Daniels into my tiny airplane coffee sippy cup. I look over at him, he’s wearing a navy blue suit with the jacket elbows worn white. His tie looks like piano keys and his shoes are Converse.

“Did you have somewhere to get to tonight?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say “somewhere very very important. I have lots of people waiting for me.”

He pulls open a Moon Pie and it falls on his lap. “I’m Jack” he says.

I shake his chocolate covered hand.

“Where do you live?” I ask.

“Here, in Pennsylvania.”

“Well, that’s convenient.”

He wipes his hands on a beverage coaster. “Not if you’re headed to New York.”

The seatbelt sign flicks off with a beep and everyone leaves the plane.

The airport is hotter than it should be for that time of night. The people all look pissed and half asleep. On the PA a woman’s voice says, “I’m sorry to inform the passengers from flight 284 that there will be no connecting flight to New York City tonight. Please talk to customer service if you have a question. Thank you for choosing Pennsylvania Harrisburg International.” I didn’t choose Harrisburg International.

I should be pissed. I should be standing with the other flight 284 refugees, staring at other deporting passengers giving them dirty looks. I should be on the phone with a hotel manager debating room prices for that night. I should be outside on the curb hailing a taxi, but I’m not.

Jack from the plane puts his hand on my shoulder, “looks like we’re fucked for the night.”

“Looks like it” I say.

“In my own state and still 200 miles from home. That’s called irony” he says, and picks up his suitcase with a jolt, “want to share a cab?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to hit up a bar?”

“Yeah.”

The Green Flamingo, a local bar that’s open all night. Drunk couples stand outside smoking, talking way too loudly. The music inside is loud as hell. I order a White Russian, Jack orders a Bud Light. We get our drinks and go to a table near the back of the bar.

“What do you do for a living?” he asks.

I take a sip, too much liqueur.

“I don’t do anything for a living. I just finished college really.”

He laughs, “shit man, you’ve got to have something you want to do with your life.”

“You sound like my father, Jack.” I say

He stops laughing.

“I never went to college,” Jack says, and drinks his light beer.

“Why not?”

Jack hesitates, “My father was a salesman. He focused more on money than he did anything else.”

“Sounds familiar”

“So when I get out of high school I show up at his house in Georgia. I throw down my diploma and say ‘thanks for being there’. He broke my collar bone.” Jack looks at the ground.

“What?”

“My father showed his ‘love’ in a funny way, he’d bring me out to the garage and fight me.”

“That’s cute, I wish my dad had beaten the crap out of me once in a while” I laugh.

“What isn’t cute about it is that he started doing it all the time, he would pull me out of bed and drag me to the garage. He didn’t just use his fists, he used his work tools. I’ve had so much brain damage cause of that fucker. I can never hold a steady job.”

My eyes widen, I take another drink.

“My mother left before she even knew my name. I guess that’s why I’ve always been trying to make my dad proud of me even after all he did.”

I can’t say anything, half in shock, half digesting my drink.

“That’s why I didn’t go to college” Jack says, and drinks more “I left that house when I was 16 and finished high school living with my grandparents. I show up two and a half years later with a diploma in my hand and he breaks my collar bone.”

Jack is yelling now, “But fuck him, right?!”

“Calm down, I know what you’re saying man” I say looking around the bar.

He calms down and takes another drink.

“My wife divorced me because I can’t give her children.”

The rum in me wants to know more, “why is that?”

“Why the fuck do you think? I shoot blanks.”

I half nod half shake my head not really knowing what to say.

“Let’s get out of here, I’m getting a bad vibe” he says.

It’s three in the morning and Jack and I are sitting on the curb in front of the bar, me with my White Russian, Jack with his light beer.

“I’m sorry for that” he says, wiping his eyes, “I’m just waiting for something better.”

“What are you waiting for?” I ask.

“I need a savior…” Jack says and looks at me, “I don’t have anything.”

“A savior?”

“I don’t know… I’m drunk, I’m sorry” he says.

A savior…

I stumble up and walk to a pay phone outside the bar. I flip through the water logged phone book and find “Stan’s Palace on Calle Las Trancas St.” The cab ride there, Jack is silent. I realize that I’m still drinking out of the same glass from the bar. We finally get to the hotel… what a shit hole. The owner sits on a red plastic 99c store chair, his throat gurgles when he puffs on his oak pipe. He smiles, seeing easy money from two drunks.

“Sorry for the steep price,” his thick Cajun accent smothering the words, “but it’s gonna be aroun’ eighty dollars for the night, gentleman.”

Jack hands his credit card to the man, he looks at me and nods, “thanks for the beer.”

The room has one bed, a rusted vibrat-o-matic machine that takes “quarters only” an empty wall socket where the TV should be, and a bathroom. We nod our silent good nights. I go into the bathroom, lock the door, and fall asleep in the empty bathtub.

There’s an annoying knocking that stirs me out of my dream the next morning. The knocking accompanies a crappy radio blasting Mariachi music from outside the door. I leave the bathroom in a haze, tasting the awful backwash of hard alcohol and fermented milk. The carpet is soft and wet under my feet, I look up and see Jack, face down in a corner. His face is pressed hard against the wall. There are two bottles of vodka lying next to him, both empty. Vomit and blood decorate the carpet. He must have gone back out that night.

I yell through the door for room service to go away and the Mariachi music disappears down the hall. I slowly walk over to Jack and pull him out of the corner. He falls with a thud on his back and I can see he’s dead.

“Fuck!” I say, stepping back into the wall.

I cover my mouth, “fuck”.

I don’t know what to do. I feel regretful and sick at the same time. That’s the second dead body I’ve seen in the past two days. The silence in the room is deafening. Not being able to scream or cry or tell anyone. It’s like the first major car accident you get into. You walk away but not the same as you were before. Perfectly okay physically, but you’ve taken a bullet mentally.

I get a towel from the bathroom and drape it over his face. The sickness in my stomach rises and I grab the ice bucket. I didn’t need this, not right now in my life. I didn’t need this fucking realization that I came here to die. I should have been found dead this morning after drinking myself to death, at least Jack wasn’t on his way to ruin some girl’s life. At least Jack was trying to forget his past. I feel so responsible for this man I didn’t know. I want to tell him that I wish I could have done more. I pile my bottles around Jack leaving an alcoholic shrine for whoever finds him. I leave two hundred dollars on the dresser and walk out.

Food

Okay, so.. I ate cat food. We had nothing else in the fridge and it was just right there, how could it be any different than tuna?

It could have used some salt but I’m not complaining.

I felt kinda bad seeing Felix watch me eat his food. So I painted him a picture.

I did my own version of Van Gogh’s Cafe at Night except with Felix sitting at a table finishing a cup of coffee.

He thought I should have used oil instead of acrylic.

~Fey

What ever happened to the Spin Doctors?

It’s Saturday so I couldn’t stay in my apartment. I took my notebook and my Precise V5 pen and went to the fair.

Sitting on a bench, watching the slurry of people go by, writing in my notebook. You’d be surprised what you can learn about people just by observing them.

First of all, there’s this fat guy with his three kids. He’s eating a corn dog which looks to be too hot because he has to guzzle his bladder buster every time he takes a bite. One of his kids are crying because his ice cream fell off the cone a few steps back and no one noticed. I did.

This guy with slicked back brown hair and a two thousand dollar suit walks by with his future Miss America trophy wife on his arm. What a badass, I’m jealous.

A priest walks by, a group of boy scouts walk by, true love is inevitable.

A group of pigeons wander the fair ground, Mad Max style, post-apocalyptic to them, wandering this giant land of gagging clowns and rich tourists. The occasional artery clogging confectionery is dropped and they fight their own brethren to the death for a taste of popcorn or cheesy pretzel.

It’s cold now and I feel the need to ride the ferris wheel.

~Fey

8:23

Dinner at.. Pete’s China house… again.

My boyfriend slurps his soup and I excuse myself because I need to tell someone that this is the last time I’ll ever be eating here. The last time I ever have to hear that man slurp his soup. The last time for a lot of shit I put up with. How the hell could I be with someone for six and a half months and just hate everything about them?

I’m going to pack my stuff, take my cat and leave him… In a few days.

I’m in the bathroom now. I don’t know why I cry anymore. It seems to happen a lot nowadays.

~Fey

It’s past noon and I’m walking along the no-path no man’s land of a super highway. Cars honk at me, people lean out the window and scream at me. It’s not my fault they don’t have any sidewalks in Pennsylvania. I could have taken a cab, but when you don’t want to think about anything, you walk. At least you can think about people screaming obscenities at you. Not thinking about Jack face down in a puddle of vomit, not thinking about your sister decomposing in the morgue waiting to be incinerated, not thinking of a girl who might not even exist anymore.

I find myself on an empty path now, I can’t even hear cars anymore. The path leads to steps that look abandoned. Broken stairs that crumble when you step on the wrong ones. Taller than the trees and fogged by the clouds that cover the top. At the top is a monstrous chapel. The stained glass windows looking over the entire city below. It has huge wooden doors scattered with rusted metal that cling to it. Opened for a short time to save a handful of souls and then closed forever. I pull on the handle and everything gets a shade darker. I look at the ground moving beneath my feet. The blood rises up from my stomach, seeping and filling the cracks in my lips like warm juice. Vibrating world, vibrating chapel, darker, darker, gone.

Heaven is a hospital in Pennsylvania, they have a staff of angels who work 12 hour days. The angels are impatient in their work, they jab needles in your arms. They suck out your blood and run odd tests with it. They stand in herds by your room door talking quietly about you. Every once in a while one of them will look back and shake their head disapprovingly. That means you didn’t lead your life well. God is a British man in a white coat who stands over you with a clipboard, nodding like you just asked a question.

“You’re a lucky man” the doctor says.

“I can’t feel myself” I say.

“That would be the pain killers” he says, “you collapsed and had a seizure.”

“Why am I a lucky man?” I ask.

“Getting to that” he says, “A homeless man found you and called the police. “

“I see”.

“Bad news is, looks like he robbed you. Luckily he didn’t touch your credit cards or drivers license. If he had you might be dead right now” he says.

“How’s that?”

“We looked up your medical records, you have quite a heart condition. How long has that been going on?” he asks.

“A year” I say

“We also found a full bottle of your heart meds. And a high percentage of alcohol in your blood.”

“How odd” I say.

“I’m not going to sugar coat this because I don’t have the time. You were told that this condition could be critical if you did not take this, correct?” he says, and holds up my bottle of pills.

“Yes.”

“You were also told to not drink as your liver may fail, correct?”

“Yes.”

“If you continue to live like this, you’ll be dead within a month.” the doctor says and puts my bottle down on a metal tray.

“I want to keep you here a couple days, just to check you out. Have you been drinking regularly?”

“Yes.”

“We need to check your liver and your heart status” he says, “we don’t want to come to any sudden conclusions, but this will be our first step.”

“Did my insurance pay for everything you’ve done so far?” I ask.

“Yes, the Red Cross took care of that.”

“Am I free to leave?”

“Well, no” he says, “like I said we need to do some routine tests.”

“I mean, if I wanted to leave, would you have police hold me or something?”

“No” he says, “of course not.”

“Do you have any Disneyland type holding cell?”

“No.”

I stand up, my back hurts. My kidneys feel sore. My head is pounding. I know I shouldn’t be leaving this hospital as I put my clothes on, I really should be back in that bed, worried about myself, trying to get better, taking my meds like they were m & m’s. But I’m thinking about a small black cat looking at the moon, the ink still drying. How to get back to that.

The doctor stares at me a moment, “I can’t help those who don’t want to be helped. All I can tell you is to take your pills and stop drinking.”

I don’t say anything, the doctor hands me the bottle and walks out of the room. I phone a shuttle and make sure they take a credit card. Waiting outside of the hospital for my shuttle to the train station, I fish in my back pocket and pull out the orange bottle of pills, I throw them away. I know at this point there won’t be a happy ending. We won’t live happily ever after. I expect a savior in someone who used to love me, who I owe everything to, who I’ll see in another life, as a cat. Someone who might not even remember me. She can’t save me.

I board the first train to New York around midnight. The train slows, stops again. I drift asleep but keep waking up to the sound of the conductor walking up and down the cabins. An old woman with an embroidered yellow hat is looking through a small leather book. I see it’s a diary, she’s looking at a picture of a little boy with blond hair, I assume is her grandchild. She smiles and turns the page. I look away, the realization that I will never have that.

“Tickets out, please.”

I watch as the country turns to thick city. The farther we go, the darker it seems. The harder it is to keep my eyes open. The baggage rattles and the lights in the cabin flicker. The train slows and finally stops. All of the lights turn on, the train settles on the track.

“This is our final stop for the evening. Everyone and all still aboard must get off. Have a good night and pleasant dreams.”

Gone

I wrote Jeff a letter. When he gets back from work tonight he’ll find it on the fridge, under the picture of us at Disney World. It said everything I didn’t have the guts to say to his face. I’m done caring whether or not I hurt him.

And now I can start over. My only regret, as someone cliched a long time ago, is that I didn’t do this sooner.

~Fey

It’s raining and the steam from the sewer rises from the street into the clouded sky. The city is loud and bright in the distance. I am so nervous that I feel sick. I hug my jacket close to me, feeling the cold in my lungs. It’s times like this I wonder if I can ever get warm again.

The moon is huge and yellow. I watch it through the smudged taxicab window. The driver asks me where I’m going. I take the business card out of my pocket. Every piece of me says no. Every remaining rationale is telling me to turn around, find a way home. Forget this suicide. It’s not worth it. I don’t have to do this. I unfold the card and tell the driver the address.

Starting over

You have no idea. You never will. In ten thousand years when you dig up my diary on an archaeological dig trying to understand people from this era, look for someone else’s diary. Look for someone a little more generic, yeah?

How long had I prolonged this? At least it’s done. No looking forward to sitting in my parents living room smiling, sipping expensive champagne, holding tight to Jeff’s American Eagle polo’d arm after announcing our engagement. Where am I going to go…

All of my stuff is packed in just a few boxes. I’m on my fourth trip to the car now, I just need to get my cat then I’m gone. Done with this shit. Done with this relationship. Replaced with a piece of paper scribbled with black ink. I am such a coward.

~Fey

The cab pulls up. I stare at the small apartment building. How many times I’d envisioned doing this. How many times I’d told myself I never would. I’d never have the reason to. How about a failing heart? Life’s funny.

I swipe my credit card and get out, standing on the sidewalk, broke, sick, vulnerable and shameless. The moon lighting the building. My stomach feels like it’s still in the taxi. I can’t do this.

She won’t even be there.

So close

8th box, my car is full. With cat in hand, I jam the last box in there and slam the trunk. Felix and I both take one last look at the apartment and I sigh.

The moon reflects in the lobby windows. At least that makes me smile. As long as we have that…

I set Felix down for one second and he runs off somewhere, great.

~Fey

Something brushes my leg. A black cat with long ears and a thin tail. I look at his name tag and recognize the name, “Felix?”

I look up and see a girl leaving an apartment building holding a journal and licking the tip of a pen. Her brown hair is a mess in the wind. She turns and smiles seeing her cat then looks up at me. I freeze, not knowing what to do, realizing the craziness of what I’d done. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know why I’m here. I came here on a whim not thinking I’d actually see her. But there she stands, not in a dream, not in a memory I can’t screw up now. I turn and run down the opposite street. I hear her running behind me, yelling for me to stop, yelling that she thinks she knows me. I look back and see her standing still staring in disbelief. I pray to god she didn’t recognize me. By the time I get to the end of the next block I look back again and she’s gone.

Ghosts

I saw a ghost from my past. He was beautiful and sad. I followed, but lost him, it was probably some poor guy I just chased down the street. I haven’t slept in days. I’m living too much in the past… Who I’m thinking of wouldn’t come back to me. He forgot about me a long time ago. I was just a fling to him way back when, and I’m a stupid girl for clinging to past memories. I’m chasing ghosts.

-Fey

I gasp for air clutching the curb of the sidewalk. I never was a runner. I feel my world shaking again and the blood stains my teeth.

Untitled

I’m in the car, getting away. There has to be something better in this life.

-Fey

Fey… I’m sorry… I couldn’t save you. I’m on my back now staring up at the night sky, the stars are dim, getting darker and darker. The seizure takes hold of my body and it doesn’t hurt anymore. Somewhere in the distance I can feel my body choking, shaking, shutting down. I feel my mind losing grasp on reality. All of my regrets fade away and I’m left with a memory. Faint and distant like a fading photograph. A boy on a bus. A boy that once felt love but now was lonely. He takes off his red glove with the fingers cut off and reads what Fey wrote, three words smudged by her tears, “don’t wake up”.

Serenade

Whenever an ambulance passes I say a prayer for the person they’re going to or the person who has lost someone. I’m not religious by any means, but I still think it helps sending good thoughts. I stayed pulled over to the side of the road for a while after the ambulance passed. I don’t know how I feel right now, like something has been taken from me. Immediately after the ambulance passed by I started crying uncontrollably and I haven’t been able to stop. I’m leaving tears all over the journal now. I don’t know who I’m crying for but it feels like a part of me died. I need someone to save me from this life.

-Fey

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