UNTIMELY #24 – A cat, for once in your life...

I’m not saying it was a nightmare, but I was definitely asleep. There was a cat, and it was sitting next to me, and I was sitting down, too. We were looking at each other, the cat and I, me and the cat. I mean, I was looking at the cat the way maybe you look at a mailbox. It’s there, you see that it’s there, but at the same time you don’t see it; you don’t really care; it wouldn’t change your life one way or another if it were suddenly to disappear, cease to exist. But the cat was looking hard. I mean hard. And it was giving off a strange energy; it suddenly seemed to awaken from this stupor of indifference and all at once it really, really minded that I was sitting right next to it. Like it found my presence actively offensive. I wasn’t doing anything. Just sitting there. Next to it. But the cat was getting madder and madder. It wasn’t moving yet either, but I could see it in its eyes, could see the anger building and building. And I could see that there was going to be some shit. The cat was kicking off. And so I sat there, watching it.

I was wearing a t-shirt and a black armband about halfway up my forearm. Maybe someone had died, maybe I’d been playing tennis. Maybe I was in a rock band. I have no idea why I was wearing such a thing in such a place.

The cat looked at me and it looked at my arm, bare save for the mysterious armband. Then it straightarmed me, with claws slightly extended, which I think is the cat equivalent of slapping someone around a little bit, just trying to get the feel of the situation and everything. Letting them know you’re upset, but sort of buying some time while you figure out what you’re gonna do. It sort of patted my arm and its claws stuck in the terrycloth of the armband and I thought this was funny but this made the cat really mad. Like even madder. It started swatting me harder and harder but it kept hitting the armband and its claws kept sticking and I just sat there, not moving, keeping my arm frozen immobile stiff. The cat got madder and madder and then it started scratching my arm above the band, and still I didn’t move. Then it started clawing my hands and biting my fingers. I could feel that something was happening to me, but I wouldn’t quite say that it hurt. It was more like a strange sensation, and I just sat there while it went crazy.

When the cat finished and ran off, I stood up, and it was only then that I realized that the warm, wet stickiness between my fingers was my blood. I was dripping bright red hot everywhere and the cuts and scratches and wounds on my hands were really pumping out all over the place. A woman walked past and when she saw my hands and the red all over the ground she started screaming, but I didn’t know what to do. It still didn’t hurt much, but the blood was pooling in my cupped hands and I was making such an awful mess.

I don’t know how it ended, but next thing I remember I was in a basement with low ceilings jousting on a papier-mâché horse.