Ame
a few weeks ago
There was a cat that roamed the outskirts of UA's campus. Every day when I left school, it'd be there, sitting atop the brick edges of the sidewalk. No one really ever questioned why it was there, where it was from. It became as much a decoration as the arch.
The cat had gray fur with white accents. It was notorious to students after a few weeks. A lot would try to interact with it. The cat let them. It never moved, never made a sound, merely lifted its head to please those who wanted to pet it.
One day, I went up to it, knelt, and emptied some water into a bottle cap. I set it up to its face, but the cat didn't drink. It only sat there, didn't even look my way till it heard the rustle of my bag against my leg.
"What are you doing here all alone?" I whispered. The cat, now seemingly thinner than I'd first noticed, looked past me, its gaze blank. "Are you hungry?"
I reached for some of Kenji's cookies. I wasn't sure what cats could and couldn't eat after all. However, it refused the treat, didn't even try to reach for it.
It was only then I noticed a steady trail of blood seeping from the cat's eyes. Panicked, I picked it up, looked for the quickest route to the vet on my phone, and skated to the nearest one with a kitten nestled in my sweatshirt.
The cat was blind, they told me once I brought her in. She was in a lot of pain even if she never showed it. They said I was a hero for saving her. Any longer out there where people didn't notice the blood in her eyes and she may have died.
My heart ached for the kitten. She was so gentle despite not being able to see. She let a stranger take her into his arms and bring her to a foreign place. She even purred as I held her close in the waiting room.
They said she was rather old, not a kitten at all. That she had no chip, no owner, so they'd keep her a few weeks then send her to a shelter.
When they took her away, I didn't feel like a hero. I was just sad.
Why did the kitten never cry? Why did she stay at UA, starving and sick without ever moving from her spot? Why did she let everyone pet her, why didn't she try and tell them she was sick? Why did no one notice she was in pain to begin with?
I cried for the kitten once I got home. I don't know why. I wanted it to live. I wanted it to see the smiles it brought so many people.
I thought about the cat for a long time. It dawned on me that maybe it knew being there made the students happy. Maybe it knew, even without being able to truly see, that just by being there it could help people.
Maybe that's all it wanted.
Ame
present
Warning: 'f' slur appears once in this chapter
The mall bustles, stores freshly open for summer. Attendants sell perfume, spritzing it on passerbyers. Couples hang on each other's every word, unaware of the customers they nearly knock into on their way out of the jewelers. Even friends enjoying a day off from high school stand in lines to order overpriced coffee.
Such a busy place would force my head down, pull my hair over my face, tuck my hands into pockets. Strangely, though, today is different. Today I notice the array of flowers decorating the marketplace, the giggling nature of children running past, even the stuffed kittens showcased behind the glass of a toy store. Today, someone walks through this trepid landscape, a dragon tattoo just peeking over his shirt collar, and a raincoat on his arm.
