The Wish Belly: Part XII
Photo by zhang kaiyv on Unsplash
A fiction serial by Shane Kimberlin
In earlier installments of The Wish Belly, our nameless protagonist journeys through a world beneath the surface of our own, searching for his missing wife. He is accompanied by a strangely powerful cat.
“This is a bit much,” I said, halfway through the questions.
“Hey,” she said, “It’s the policy. Anyways, you’re doing great.”
“Just,” I sighed, “asking me about how loud I can yell? It’s weird.”
“Just try your best. Or not. Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
“This is bad for you,” said the cat, “but fun to watch. You are squirming like interrogation is real. You are in real hot seat.”
“I wouldn’t gloat too much, comrade,” said Melinda, “You’re next after him.”
“What?” said the cat, “but I am cat. I do not need ticket. I am like pet.”
“Are you kidding me? You are a cat who talks. And you’re Russian.”
“Ukrainian.” Melinda closed her eyes. “Whatever. Okay. Let’s keep going.”
We finished the questions to the best of my ability. I didn’t know my blood type and wasn’t sure when I had stopped being scared of the dark.
“Okay,” said Melinda, “Thank you. Next.”
The cat looked at me. I shrugged.
“Alright,” said Melinda, “now, listen, try to answer correctly as best you can. It’s important. If you don’t answer truthfully, the box will sense you’re full of it and you won’t get a ticket.
One time the box even broke from the b.s.”
“You intimidate me,” said the cat, “you kid.”
“No,” she sighed, “it’s why the box broke. Some joker lied about his height. Said he was five ten when he was only five eight. What is with guys always adding to their height? It’s like, five eight guys are always five ten, five ten guys are always six foot, and six foot guys always give some tricky number, you know? Six foot one and a half inch my tuchus”
The cat shrugged.
“Maybe you intimidate men,” said the cat.
“Hey,” she said, “I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed by Sigmund, uh, Feline. Let’s go. Name?”
“Leo Ivan,” he said.
I felt bad when he answered so freely about his name. I had never even asked. I’d thought of him as merely “the cat” in my mind, even after all we’d been through in the past few days. I didn’t know why.
Maybe the guilt of wanting to trade him for my wife would only be compounded the more I got to know him, so I tried to leave out details. Tried to not know his name. Tried to keep him as the cat. But I couldn’t any longer without consciously trying. Maybe I was doing the same thing with Annie. Calling her my wife helped detach from the situation, because I didn’t even know what situation I was in.
“Date of birth?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, fair enough, can you give me an estimate?” “1980.”
Melinda raised one eyebrow.
“Okay. Hometown?” “Odessa, Ukraine.”
“Hair color?”
“Orange.”
“Height?”
“Do not know.”
“I’d say you’re about a foot tall.”
“But I am longer,” insisted Leo, “if I stood on two legs I’d be almost two and a half feet.”
“It cleared. Okay, ethnicity?”
“Does it apply?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to put ‘kitty’ because it’s cute.’”
“Fine. Be ‘cute.’”
“Nationality? Ukrainian, right? You probably didn’t go to the DMV and get your papers I’m guessing.”
“Yes, Ukrainian is fine.”
“Accent? I think you sound vaguely Eastern European.”
“What? I sound as I am from Ukraine.”
“No, no, it’s not, like, super strong. What do you think?”
She looked at me. So did the cat Leo.
“I think,” I said, “it’s a combination of your two views.”
“Boo,” said Melinda.
“Yes, ‘boo,’” said Leo, “you are like politician. Kissing babies on trains and shaking hands for bad deals in backrooms. Wish wash.”
“It’s wishy washy,” I said.
“How can I believe you?” said Leo, laughing, “’’wishy’ and ‘washy’ are not even words. Everyone knows what washing a wish is.”
“Well, I’m gonna just put Ukrainian,” said Melinda, “even if you sound sometimes like a guy doing an impression of an accent.”
“Fair enough.”
Mundane stuff followed. Leo, apparently, really wanted pajamas to understand just how cool and smooth they’d be on him. He wasn’t afraid of the dark. He wasn’t, it seemed, afraid of anything. On it went until it didn’t any longer.
“Okay,” said Melinda, “that’s it. The box didn’t break. I think you guys passed. It’ll take less than an hour to get these printed.”
“Huh?” I said, “What do you mean? I thought it was a magic box.”
“Magic isn’t always ‘right away’,” Melinda said, “and anyway it’s not magic, it’s based on science, or whatever. I gotta start putting chairs down. We open soon. You two should go on a walk or something.”
“We could help,” I said.
“Look,” she said, “not to be mean, but I just need a little time to be alone before I’m not alone again. And it’ll be fun. Walk around your alma mater. Smell the flowers. They’re dead...but smell them.”
We left out, Leo and I. Walked down different sidewalks through the college.
“Hey, your cat needs a leash,” said one suited, bald man carrying a briefcase. He was short and looked like he was having a bad day or life or something.
“He’s my guard and therapy cat,” I explained, “I have a condition.”
“Very well,” he said, “just make sure he doesn’t spread allergies.”
We kept walking.
“What a jerk, yeah?” said
Leo. “Yeah.”
“Why did you massage the truth,” he said, “you could have told him instead to go take hikes.”
“I dunno,” I said, “I don’t want any hassle. Keeping a low profile.”
“Are we in danger you think?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you miss this place?” said Leo.
“The college?”
“Yeah.”
“Not at all. Well. I’m not sure,” I said, “maybe if she was here. If things were more normal. I miss her, you know? We were so young then. The world felt so open, we were so open. Just kids.”
“Is it closed?”
“It’s opening up again but in a scary way, which is different. It’s hard to explain. Do you understand?”
“Often,” said the cat, “when we wish to return to a place we really wish to return to a time, even though we know that is impossible. The wish itself can seem more powerful than the impossibility, but it’s a wish all the same.”
“Do you miss a place? Or, I guess, a time?”
“Always,” said Leo, “but I’m happy to miss something. Some people never even get the chance. It’s a great gift. A cruel gift but great. The opposite is to never miss anything or anyone, but then you never really loved enough to have the opportunity. Such is life. The pain makes the joy real. Do you see?”
“Yes, I think I do. Do you think wishes are good?”
“Wishes are just a yearning for a dream, and a dream can be heaven for someone until they wake up. Sometimes it’s good to sleep. The world is too rough when you are truly awake. Some people can’t handle it. But we can never go back anywhere. Even if we could, we would be different, so it would never be the same. That is my view. A cold view.”
“No,” I said, “I understand. It still is crazy you’re a cat and talking to me. I can’t go back to you not talking to me though. It’s just what it is.”
“You are able to accept change. I will tell you, I have talked to people before and they do not accept I am talking to them. They think they are insane. One woman thought I was possessed. This was in New York City when I arrived as stowaway on boat. She took me in. A loner. A week passed and I felt comfortable. I said ‘howdy’ to her. Bad move. I spoke more. Worst. That night I awoke from nap to find candles in a formation. She had a book. Saying strange words.”
“Like an exorcism?” I asked.
“Yes. Something like that.
I jumped out second story window of apartment and escaped. Once I talked to bus driver and he pretended he didn’t hear me. This is common.”
“They didn’t like change.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like change either,” I said, “but I can’t not pretend it’s the same. It’s not just one thing, it’s a lot of things. I can’t hide from all of it at once.”
“Do you think she is alright?”
I paused.
“I...I hope so.”
“We are almost there,” said Leo.
“Maybe.”
“We are.”
There wasn’t much else to say.
“I am going to take nap,”
Leo yawned, “my bones ache.”
“Okay. Do you want me to walk with you back?”
The cat looked up at me with the shadow of a smile.
“I’ll be okay.”
The cat sauntered off, brushing aside any interested persons. I looked out at the gazebo of the college. Young people with heads stuffed full of dreams, some to come true, some to be broken, and most to be forgotten. I remember her and I at this very spot, talking about the future. Some of it came true, at least.
“Hey,” said a bored low voice, “we need to chat.”
I turned around. It was the bald man with the briefcase.
The Wish Belly series by Shane Kimberlin: