Grimalkin and Other Short Stories

Grimalkin

This particular story was designed as a narrative for my English class. It was designed to be a story that could have been a romanticism story.

-Nix

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On the end of Tipton Avenue sat a tiny baby blue house belonging to the Wellingtons. It has been there ever since the town was founded, and yet it did not look the part. The garden was well tended to, and the porch was neither sagging or rotting. The paint looked fresh, and no weed was allowed to intrude on the brick pathway leading up to the front door. The snow-white trim was never allowed to have a speck of dirt appear on it, and the windows were near-invisible because they were so clean. A cedar rocking chair sat on the left corner of the porch, and on warm, sunny days, an ebony black cat with bright green eyes could be found sleeping on it. His name was Grimalkin, and he belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Wellington.

Mr. and Mrs. Wellington were neither rich, nor successful, even though they were well-loved and known for their kindness and generosity. Mr. Wellington was the local butcher, and would often offer a discount to those who were too poor to purchase meat. He perpetually wore frayed overalls the colour of dirty snow in early spring and a light olive green long-sleeved shirt. His boots were the colour of dried mud due to years spent trekking through the filthy town in the rain. He was as tall and gaunt as Mrs. Wellington was short and plump.

Mrs. Wellington operated a tiny tailoring shop out of the baby blue house that they lived in. She sewed anything from quilts to clothing to kitchen towels and sold them for a fair price. She had a good hand at embroidery, yet in such a small town, her speciality was not necessary. She would donate quilts to the homeless and would sew clothing for those in need. She wore, more often than not, her favourite sky-blue dress and beetroot red apron. The wrinkles by her eyes and mouth revealed years of smiling cheerfully at everyone and anyone.

Time passed, and while Mr. Wellington got his first gray hairs and Mrs. Wellington could no longer bend over without shooting pains in her back, Grimalkin simply kept on going. The ebony coloured cat never seemed to age a day, not even when Mr. Wellington was admitted to the local asylum.

His mind had been deteriorating, and no one could figure out why. He would rant and rave about Grimalkin, going so far as to kick the feline around and shove him outside in the cold. Grimalkin would just shake himself out and walk away, leaving Mr. Wellington to grow slowly worse.

It was not long before Mr. Wellington died, leaving his wife with nothing but the baby blue house and Grimalkin. The picturesque house deteriorated, for Mrs. Wellington was old and could no longer maintain the garden or clean. Her neighbour, Mr. Hudson, would come by every few weeks or so to check in on Mrs. Wellington and make sure that she was well fed and that the cherry wood grandfather clock that sat in the living room still worked. During these visits, Grimalkin would hiss and hide in the shadows, his green eyes glowing in the dark, the rest of him invisible to the rest of the world.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning when the first incident happened. Mrs. Wellington was sitting on the porch in the cedar rocking chair, her salt-and-pepper hair moving every so often with the thin, spring breeze floating through town. Her next-door neighbour's daffodils were in full bloom, and the air was fresh and crisp and smelled faintly of early spring flowers and melted snow. A quilt was abandoned in her hands, a needle tucked into a corner as she stared pensively out at the cobblestone street. Her eyes moved slowly to a forest green house where two children were playing hopscotch. In the garden of another home, Mr. Hudson was planting seeds, presumably flowers or squash.

She finally turned away, looking at the blue paint that was cracking on the walls of her once fairytale picturesque home. She looks away, looking down at the porch where she saw Grimalkin cleaning himself. He seemed calm and unstressed and almost seemed perfectly relaxed. He was methodical with his cleaning and seemed just as lithe and normal as the first day she had seen him. He was working on his left flank, leaning over and over again, his rough tongue moving over and over again against his shiny fur, working to get the dirt dislodged. All of a sudden, Grimalkin looked up and locked eyes with Mrs. Wellington.