between life and death

tabby

George has never met anyone older than thirty-two. He's probably never even met anyone older than thirty. He reaches his fortieth birthday and feels the same as he always has. He looks the same anyway.

George wonders if one day he'll just drop dead in the middle of the street in front of all the women and children at the Sunday market. But then he reaches fifty and the town starts to talk. It's been twenty-six years since he fell in the water and he hasn't aged since.

The members of the clergy hiss whispers amongst each other when he passes the church on his way into town, and mothers shield their children from his view when he's near. George has always been too poor for religion, it's no wonder that rumors spread. The most popular one seems to be that he's some sort of Antichrist, a heathen who's made a deal with the devil for eternal youth.

He may be poor, atheist, and uneducated, but he's smart enough to know that if he doesn't leave now, he'll be hung in the town square by morning.

His family members have been dead for years. It's easy to pack up his meager belongings and leave a town that never cared about him anyway.

"Don't look at me like that." George sighs and tries to shake off the orange stray cat tugging at his pant leg. "I shouldn't have given you so many scraps."

"Mrow." The cat answers, staring up at him with shocking green eyes.

"I can't bring you with me." George repeats, as though the cat can understand him. "You have to stay here, I'm sorry."

The brunette turns down the cobbled lane and walks away. He walks for about a minute before the tabby is darting in the way of his path and rubbing against his legs.

"What?" George deadpans. "You want to come with me that much?"

The cat purrs.

"You bastard." He mutters but shoves the animal into his coat. He takes off down the road again. It's getting dark out but he can't pause to find careful footing, his ride might leave without him.

He runs until he nears the docks, rats scurrying between crates and barrels waiting to be packed into the awaiting ship. A rat that looks large enough to eat the cat in his arms scampers over his boot and he kicks it away.

George knows that the decision he's about to make is probably idiotic and likely to fail, but he's poor and malnourished enough to fit in a crate. Before one of the ship hands sees him, he hides in a crate of wool that smells like hay and sheep dung. It's stuffy and damp, but it's warm compared to the biting air outside. It's the warmest he's felt since the day he drowned.

"We're not friends. I'm only holding you because you're warm" George reminds the cat when it licks his face. "If you don't behave I'll make you into a hat."

George must drift off at some point because when he wakes up, his crate has been loaded onto the ship and he can feel the lilting sway of the ocean. He's still buried beneath woolen fleece, but it's easy enough to dig his way out and force his way through the crate's flimsy wood.

"Here." George sets the cat down on the floor between stacks of cargo. "I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure where this ship is going."

The cat tilts his head as though to ask, 'Why is it my problem that you're an idiot?'

"Shut up." George tells the cat and then feels incredibly dumb. "You're lucky you're cute."

—

It's April of 1318 and George is a fifty-year-old man in Paris. He's too old to start his life all over again. The port and streets are bustling which makes it easy to disappear into the crowds of merchants and families. George doesn't know a lick of French but he supposes that he can learn if he can't figure out a way to die first.

"Have some water, are you thirsty?" George scoops some water from a bucket collecting rainwater in front of a closed market stall. He holds it in his hands in front of his cat.

"What's wrong?" George frowns and lets the water spill to the ground. "You must be thirsty, we've been traveling. Are you hungry? I don't know what you can eat, I have some bread."

George hurries to rummage through his bundles when he notices it. The slight trembling in his cat's legs, the unnaturally loud purring, the absent darkness in his cat's eyes. George watched each one of his family members die. He's died himself. He's no stranger to death, though he has never seen sickness take hold so quickly.

"I'm sorry." George whispers and settles down on the street. He cradles his cat to his chest and gently plucks the fleas from the ship's rats out of his fur. "How did this happen?"

He feels the weak thrum of the cat's heart halt and cradles its feverish corpse to his chest. "I'm sorry that I couldn't keep you safe." He scrubs the tears from his face. He shouldn't be crying over some alley cat, but he can't help it. "I'm sorry for threatening to make you a hat." He laughs remorsefully.

George buries the cat between rose bushes in the square when the guards aren't looking. Maybe he buries part of himself as well, but he doesn't think about it much. It was just a cat, he tells himself, though he doesn't think he'll ever believe it.

As he smooths the soil, he wonders what would happen if he let the dirt swallow him as well.