To be with you

Act II: The past - "3 years ago"

It was a cold dark night in NYC. I was just getting out of my office building like every other day. NYC is always crowded with people rushing but going nowhere. I stopped looking at the numbers on people’s heads unless I was bored. It had become very normal to the point of causing depression to me by now.

I’d rather not look. It’d be strange if I saw someone again having only a few hours or minutes to live.

I was about to haul a taxi when something caught my attention and I turned to look. A cat in a cardboard box was shivering in the heartless cold mewing helplessly. I gazed around to notice no one was paying attention.

I thought the world loved cats…

I stared at the cat’s head and focused. Numbers appeared on top of its head and I made the calculations which I had figured out as a child. It was strange to see that the cat had over six more years to live but looking at its condition right now, no one would believe me.

Curiosity got the better of me. I stood by the mail box and waited to see what would change. I was twenty nine years old and this ability still unnaturally piqued my interest in people. My watch showed a quarter to eight. A few people paid attention to the cat, by dropping off bits of food or pouring water for it. Yet no one seemed to pick it up or even touch it. It probably looked diseased and ‘un-cute’.

I saw a brawly man drop off a piece of meat from his burger. I saw a few children rushing to it only to be told off by their mother. I saw an old lady who poured water attempt to pat it only to pat the box.

Wonder what kindness is? In thought or in action? Or both?

My watch slowly ticked the minutes away and before I knew it was a few minutes to nine. I sighed and turned around to see the streets in front of me appear all white. It had been snowing for a while and I was too distracted to realize it. I chuckled to myself and decided I’d better get back home. As I raised my hand to call a taxi I glanced at the cat. I saw someone, a lady, kneeling by the cardboard box and hugging the cat.

Kindness also finds its way, I guess?

I heard a honk beside me and I turned around. A cab driver was looking out at me and asking me to get in quick. I nodded and just as I was about to place my left foot forward I heard a voice from behind me.

“Hey mister!! Could you help me for a bit?” asked the lady holding the cat.

“Me?”

“Yes! You! You can always call a new cab, but can you come here for a minute?” she asked again.

I thought she was crazy. This was New York, why would I do that? No matter how pretty she was. I stared at her for a few seconds and the look of conviction to get my assistance.

 The driver honked and bellowed, “Aye mon! You gettin’ in or what? I got a wife waiting for me at home and I need to be ‘way from there!”

Ignoring the taxi, I focused and saw the lady’s numbers on her head. Just a reflex I guess. My eyes widened as I saw it. I did not have to calculate this one.

She yelled again in a last effort to call me, “I know you’ve been here a while!! A little longer won’t kill you…sir.”

I waved my hand at the cabbie and mimed my apologies, who then spew a few curses and rode off. I then turned to the lady.

“What makes you think I have been here a while?”

She pointed to me feet and said, “No snow where you are standing. Look around you, it’s been snowing quite a while. That must be one warm overcoat. I don’t know why you were standing there but I am sure you noticed this kitty’s mews. I guess I understand if you couldn’t do anything about it, you are probably allergic and…”

“What if I did not want to?”

She paused, pondered and then shrugged, “Then you would have got into that taxi.”

She was already starting to annoy me as if she knew everything about me. I walked towards her and stood a few feet away. I took a better look at the cat. It looked really ill, it did not seem like it would last the night. Then again, I could see the numbers. That was in truth, the whole reason I had been standing here.

“Give me your coat,” she demanded.

“Am sorry, what? What would I do without it?”

“You’ll live, no doubt,” she said snapping back at me.

I reluctantly handed over my thick overcoat which she quickly grabbed and wrapped the vermin in a cocoon, hugging it.

I looked around and my body slowly started figuring out how cold it was with intermittent shivers. As I hugged myself I saw her briskly get up and starting to walk away.

“Oi! Lady! What about my coat?”

She turned back and looked at me and then at the coat. She frowned and said, “Give me your card and I’ll get it sent back to you.”

I was shocked at her audacity as well her presence of mind. I stared at her for a few seconds.

“I don’t believe you.”

We stood there staring at each other for a few minutes in a deadlock, after which she said, “Well, I’ll take us over to my friend’s place. She’s not at home. Don’t try and get cocky. I have the police on speed dial. Don’t even begin to think you are going to get lucky tonight!! You’ll wait outside.”

“You are the one holding my coat hostage. You call the shots.”

We started to walk briskly down the roads for another ten minutes. She paid no attention to me as she seemed quite worried about the cat. I stared at how nose was turning red to the cold yet she was concerned about the animal in my overcoat.

“The coat should warm, since I was wearing it all the while.”

She shook her head and said, “That’s not it. She seems to be breathing heavy. I hope she has not caught something.”

“She’ll live. Live long.”

She quickly turned to me and frowned, “How can you say that? It’d be a miracle if she survives the night!”

I walked quietly thinking about how I knew that. Of course, it was my secret. I pointed at my coat and smiled.

“It’s a lifesaving armour.”

She puffed her cheeks and said, “It better be.”

I looked up at the dark sky and felt warm inside.

***