Wandering within the unkempt area, all I have loved and cared for at such great cost in time and effort, the sight depressed me and I kicked at dead leaves, at clumps of weeds, and bending, I picked up a long, slender twig, still flexible, not broken off the tree long enough for it to become brittle.
I twitched it so that it stung my leg and then quickly moved behind a tree as an old vehicle arrived, parking before the house.
With longing, but also dismay, I watched as she left the car, walked up the few steps and entered the house.
I ached, mind darkened by dismay as I realised I have arrived far later than I had hoped for. I could recognise her, but my little kitten, as I used to call her, has aged and let herself go, so that she looks like any of the multitude of blowsy, fat and coarsened man-hating women one sees in places where life is hard and filled with invisible razors that carve the soul out of hearts. She has been made into all I despise of women and I sense this is another guilt of mine.
I could no longer delay, my own pain and guilt driving me, for though it was obviously too late for love to mean anything, my guilt was overpowering and I must speak of it.
The door was not locked, as it almost never is by me during the day, so I entered without being heard. As I looked into the parlour, I saw myself, an aged broken man who lives, despite not wishing for life. He lay back on the couch with eyes closed, as if it would block off the spiteful rage in her voice and face, but I suspect it made no difference, the years and her contempt for him having engraved their image within the heart of him.
As she walked to the kitchen, he opened his eyes for a few seconds and I saw the love that drives me still in his look, as if he still sees his little kitten in her.
The banging and thumps spoke of her temper, so I quietly slipped into the kitchen, shut the door, and then, as she stood with her back to me, I swung the twig in a vicious whipping motion, striking her across her well-padded behind.
She cried out and swung around, ready to attack, saw my face and froze.
I pointed at a chair. “Sit!”
I threw away the switch and sat opposite her. “I’m sorry kitten, but you needed the shock so as to break out of your tantrum. I need you to hear what I have to tell you. It is important, so sit quietly until I am done.”
She was in shock, so she only rubbed at her bum as she stared at me.
“As you see, I am a younger version of your father. I have not arrived here by travelling through time, but by leaving my reality. It is important I tell you why.
I too had my kitten and I adored her, no, I still do. She is and forever will be all that is most precious to me. You see, she died at the age of nine - at the age of being young enough to believe in her daddy, despite the disappointments - unable to see his weaknesses and failings. I presume,” and nodded towards the door, “he has the same failings - but he was luckier than I. He did not cause the death of his little girl, as I did.
You see, in my reality, I dozed through the time of collecting her from school, so instead I was forced to go to her at the morgue. They did not pretty up my kitten for me, they let me see her covered in her blood and with her flesh slashed, so that I saw her bones for the first time - and I will continue to see them until the day I die.
Kitten, I could not live, yet I could not die. I felt a desperate need to find my kitten before she was killed and see her safely home, as I should have done with my own precious girl.
I tried and tried and willed for it to happen and something burst. Whether it was of time and space or a bubble within my own brain, I do not know, but it is how I arrived here.
When you got out of your car, I recognised you and felt fate is cruel. I saw and heard the anger and hate in you and I am hoping that maybe fate is not as cruel as I’d thought; maybe I was brought here to help the two of you, so that his life ends with his kitten still a warmth of love within him.
I know I am a difficult person to live with, at times too sloppy to bear, but instead of allowing it to anger you, turning your lives into a contest, why not try to find ways to forgive the habits he can no longer change, so that you are both free to share some love?”
Her eyes remained cold and hard and out of nervousness I brushed back the few hairs I still have and as my hand returned to rest on the table, it sunk through the formica and I knew I am running out of time.
“Kitten, I am being taken, but I must tell you, at least this one more time, I love you.”
Within a minute I had faded from her view, but somehow I remained, trying to hold on to the sight of her for a few extra minutes.
She moved, with anger making her movements abrupt. She stood over him and as he sensed her and opened his eyes, she spoke softly, oh so very softly, the venom as bitter as she’d wished it to be. “I hate you; why don’t you die?”
With grief poisoning my heart also, I realised that kindness and love have no meaning when the love of the other has curdled and turned the heart into sour cold stone.
As the world faded, my last sight was of him struggling and then falling limp as his heart finally surrendered.
I left, crying out, protesting, demanding, “One more time please. Take me to save my kitten, just this once so as to let my life recover a sense of meaning. Please, my darling baby kitten, I must save her just once before I fade away forever.”
Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου (Alexander Zenon Eustace)
Written: 20th October, 2018
* posted Publish0x: 13th July, 2019
* posted on Steemit: 23rd October, 2018<br>
