I was folding clothes. It was daylight out. Around four pm. I'm surprised there was no snow yet. It would come sooner or later.
I had "Dead Memories" by Slipknot playing low on my phone. That was my favorite song by them. I couldn't decide whether to tightly fold the towels or just loosely do it. Loose would do. They would be in the bathroom anyway.
I heard a door close downstairs and felt his presence in the house. He was a beautiful ghost. I heard him come up the steps like scuffling leaves. His face was alight. Something was up.
"Hello monsieur." I said. He came to where I was and pushed me back across the bed. He kissed me, knotting our fingers together above my head. It was strange and beautiful.
"Hi." His voice came like thunder by my ear. He kissed me tenderly a few times, giving me a longing, before he just laid on me and stared at my face like a painting. He looked into my eyes as I did his, trying to find the gears to his sudden madness. Cherries. I got a hankering for cherries.
Sweet.
"So," he began, settling. "What do you think," he trailed his index finger down the center of my body. "about getting a dog?"
I felt a supernatural happiness burst alive. "A Shepard? Please say a Shepard."
"If that's what you want."
"Yes!" I said. "Oh yes!" A German Shepard! I've always wanted one.
"We'll be on the lookout my dear." He said, kissing my nose.
"Indeed."
•↭•↭
It was a few nights later. I was driving home in the Jeep, the night dark and the headlights guiding me across this snake road. I was maybe five minutes from home. I ran out to get us ice cream, since we both had a hankering for it. I got my cherries. Sweet cherries. I drove and tied the stem with my tongue.
The trees rose. The earthen skyscrapers. Razor leaves shot into the sky. The stars were out. It was a cold winter night. The road was gray.
I took a turn smoothly, passing Amen Lane; a turn off to a subdivision a quarter mile down it. I kept on, headlights white, painting the scene ahead when I saw something on the edge of the road. It was big.
And it was not alone.
I pressed the brakes, not necessarily jerking forward but enough to rock me. I got out and ran over to it.
It was a bobcat. A big bobcat that was hit by a car, just laying on the side of the road. Laying next to it was something I could never peel from my mind. I reached out and grabbed it. It made a small noise, questioning what was going on. It couldn't see me, its eyes were still shut. I looked in the grass by the mother bobcat and under her paws, but there was just the one.
He mewed at me again.
I cuddled him in my bosom and paced back to the Jeep. I held him there all the way home, cradled against me and my jacket.
"Baby, baby look!" I said once he came trotting down the steps in just his sleep pants. I held it close to me and our ice cream bags in my other hand.
"What is it?" He asked. He searched my hand that held the creature, following me to the kitchen.
I sat the bags down.
"What should we do for him?" I asked. He was mewing softly at me, wriggling with all his little might in my arms.
"Give him some warm milk."
My King got out the milk and put it into a small bowl then warmed it up. I petted the tiny being in my grasp until the microwave dinged and he held out the warm milk.
"Do we have a bottle?"
We did. I bought one when we moved here just because I'm a crazy cat lady who thinks we might run across a kitten.
We did.
Just, not necessarily a house cat.
I reached into the cabinet and got it, having him pour the milk in. I caressed the baby while feeding him the milk. My heart was bursting in plumes of love.
"Where'd he come from?" He stood next to me, his heat touching me softly, his skin brushing my jacket.
"The side of the road. His mother was gone."
Call me a lunatic. Dead is such a harsh word sometimes.
He reached across and placed his gentle fingers along the tiny body.
"We're keeping him, you know that?" I said.
"I didn't say we weren't."
I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I knew he saw my heart in my eyes. He smiled. I kissed him then looked at the baby.
"This is your home little wildcat."
This bobcat kitten was now ours.
