palm trees of eve

1

Venus wraps his tail around her legs and meows.

Alia shushes the rescued cat as she bends down to sooth his furs. "Mama will hear you and have a fit, you gorgeous beast."

Lately, the sun has been unbearably unforgivable, even for home. The more leaves the sun burns, the more Alia worries for the fate of her furry fiend. It's a shame her mother has an outspoken vengeance for all living creatures besides human beings. Venus, caught in an endless cycle of bad luck, has been sentenced to life in a storage room. Alia made sure it was not too crowded. However, there are no vents in the walls of the storage room, and so the cat must bear with the heat. She leaves the door open a smidge, and they have a big enough space outside their house for her favorite cat to roam around as he pleases. Sometimes, when she's certain her mother will be away for a while, Alia carries Venus upstairs, and imagines she is not breaking the rules.

"You're a good cat," Alia says.

Venus is a good cat. He never complains about the heat, and he always welcomes human affection.

Alia picks up her paintbrush, and continues again an endlessly troubling route in attempt to replicate the perfectly white fur of her perfectly good cat.

The trouble with painting is that Alia, like many others who call themselves artists, thinks her work will never be good enough. Her little notebook begins with an enthusiastic account of all her ideas, and ends with red lines and firmly declared second thoughts. What she initially assumes will be her greatest work of all, becomes a crumpled heap of half-hearted sketches, and not one perfect end result.

She is sure now that poets, and writers, and actors, and actresses all feel the same way. But she is also certain that painters have it worse. They are stuck with the visual representation of their life's dream, and it is often as unpleasant as the ball of fur that scrapes its way out of Venus's throat.

"I'd much prefer it if you stayed still," she murmurs, and dips her paintbrush in another swish of turpentine, and the scent of oils and paints grows stronger in the cluster of what should be Ali's game room, turned into her artist's studio.

He has no idea of this current takeover, and she would like things to remain that way for as long as possible, thank you very much.

"Venus," she huffs, when he knocks something over at the other end of the room. But when she looks up from her canvas, Venus had been behaving, and hadn't moved from his reclined position. Alia turns to find that a game console had been knocked over from its place on top of Ali's desk. It lays now on the carpeted floor.

Venus lifts his head to peer over, and then slides his icy eyes shut again.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs as she scratches behind his ears. "It must be the ghost again."

There is no ghost, and there can't be because ghosts aren't real, but Alia had to come up with something to explain the odd occurrences that have appeared in the past few weeks.

Only the night before she had been in this very chair, trying hard to mix the right colors to match Venus's eyes, when a book slid off a bookshelf, and crashed to the floor. Last week, she had been taking a shower when her phone suddenly started to play New Order's complete discography.

Venus doesn't mind.

Alia stands and returns the console where it belongs. The air in the room feels the same as it always has. It was as if nothing had changed at all. If she ignores the smell of her oils and paints, and looks away from her work area, the room looks just as Ali left it in July.

She sighs and sits down on her swiveling chair. Now if she could only set aside these imposed encounters with the afterlife and focus on replicating life on her canvas. It was, after all, her idea to set out on a quest in which its main objective is to steal Da Vinci's title as the greatest renaissance painter.

When it happens again, and the same console falls to the floor, Alia thinks she's had enough of painting today.

"Your fur looks flat anyway," she says to Venus as she carries him back to his room. He cries out and hisses, and so she lets him out into the garden and scorching heat. He doesn't see her stick her tongue out.

"I spoil you too much."

Later, as night falls and the day starts for Ali, she repeats her day's strange encounters in hopes of receiving some form of emotional support.

"No wonder someone's trying to contact you from the dead," she hears Khalifa say, though his voice is muffled. "You speak to yourself most of the time."

"I don't!"

"You do," Ali confirms.

"How would you know?" she asks. "You're not here anymore."

"This isn't a new habit you've suddenly picked up on, Alia. You've been this way since childhood. Ask Mama, and she'll tell you how badly she's been meaning to rip your tongue out."

"Thanks, really. I've not only a ghost following me around, but a nasty habit I can't break."

"All habits can be broken," Khalifa interjects again. "If you truly want to break them."

"He knows," Ali says. "Since he has a habit that also involves his mouth, but mainly his teeth."

"Goodnight, Alia. Your brother is drunk."

"Oh, please, I'd love to hear more. It would distract me and my ghost friends."

"Goodnight," Ali presses. "We have class in ten minutes and Khalifa's still in his pajamas."

"I don't wear pajamas."

"As far as Alia knows, you do."

"Don't leave me," she begs. "Even Venus doesn't believe me."

"Bye, bye!"

Alia groans, and her Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie poster falls from where it hangs by her door.

"Great, thanks." She closes her eyes. "I fucking love that poster."

-

Hello yes I'm back yes I've kept my word but only because this was pre-written a few months ago when I was still full of passion. y i k e s.

xx