Pineapples, Am I Right? (Part 3)

“But it's good just to see Rachel with someone who isn't a disinterested prick. She's always ended up with these passive aggressive men who made me nervous but this guy seems to treat her well, at least. And he's very handsome.”

“You humans are silly.”

“And cat's aren't? What do you know anyway?”

Some where around this time Elizabeth began to remember that she was talking to her house cat and perhaps she'd lost her mind. Still, she marveled, it's amazing how quickly a person can get used to the surreal.

“And speaking of that, how the hell do you know about Sailor Moon?”

“Don't look at me, I'm just a cat. Probably just a figment of your quickly debilitating mind.”

“And what does that mean?”

She suddenly stood up in disgust and found her hands on her hips looking down at the tabby. Elizabeth was by nature a good-hearted and quiet person but to be insulted to so effectively was enough to give rise to even her pride.

“Again, I'm just a cat.” Piddles paused to lick his genitals again, his legs splayed in the air, “But come on. You're what, twenty eight? That's like eight million in cat years and you live alone, you work at a library, and you're talking to your goddamn cat.”

The pot of water chose that moment to boil over and Elizabeth walked over to turn the burner down, her eyes narrowed and looking towards Piddles. “Well, I don't normally do that, but you're talking back today.”

Again, she thought, it's amazing how quickly you get used to these things.

“Uh huh. Remember, I've been here the whole time. As I was saying,” Again the cat paused to lick a particularly pungent part of his bum, “You live alone, talk to your cat all damn day and, pardon my forwardness, but when's the last time you had a guy over?”

“Well, there was Brad. . .”

Brad, tall and balding and never quite sure what to do with his tongue, whether it be in his mouth or other places. Brad who came over twice and then stopped returning her calls.

“Yeah, Brad. I may be a cat but that guy was a goddamn stray. And really? How many years was that in human terms? I was still a spring chicken, is all I know.”

“It wasn't that long ago!”

“Yeah, and what about Mark?”

Mark, his broad shoulders and his hairy forearms which flexed in that special little way when he slipped her the paper with his number on it. The number she'd thrown away wondering how any man could ever be so forward as to slip his number to the librarian.

“How do you know about Mark?”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe I heard about him from you for like two weeks and that one night when you kept moaning his name while played with that blue vibratey thing--”

“Hey!” Elizabeth stomped her foot on the ground and yelled at the cat, her anger finally up and the sound of the knife on the cutting board a resounding whack as she slammed it down. “That's none of your business! And you chewed the damn thing up anyway!”

“Eh, I was never that interested in your damn sex life anyway and I didn't chew it up for the taste. It just kept jumping around under your pillow.”

“You little ungrateful. . . Turd!” She waved the knife at him then, slinging it around like a pointer as she yelled. “I feed you and I scoop your. . . your shit,” Elizabeth puffed her chest a little then, proud to have gotten her anger across, “and you talk to me like this.”

“Hey, I'm just a cat remember? Just a figment of your imagination, but I'm just saying maybe you should get out more. Maybe call your friends occasionally when you're not just desperate for help.”

*** All around me are familiar faces; Worn out places, worn out faces ***

“And stop listening to such depressing music!”

Hearing the ring-tone Elizabeth picked up her phone and saw Rachel's face on the screen again but this time it was her and Ian looking longfully at one another, Rachel's lips a bright red and his cheek wearing a crimson imprint. Of course she changed her Facebook picture to some sappy crap like that, she couldn't help but think as she picked up the phone and looked at the little icon, wondering if she should answer.

Looking at Piddles again, licking his privates once more, she idly picked a piece of the pineapple from its can and started to munch on it before she finally swiped the “answer” icon to the right.

“Meeoorrww?”

Pineapples, Am I Right? (Part 2)

Elizabeth sat up with her knees to her chest, a bundle of plaid flannel as she kept an eye on Mr. Piddles on the other side of the room, clawing aimlessly at his cat-scratcher like nothing had happened. Her hands shook as she hit the icon of a young Asian woman with her cheeks blown up like a puffer fish on her phone’s screen.

“Elizabeth?” An audible gasp escaped Elizabeth’s mouth at the sound of Mr. Piddles’… voice.

“Elizabeth, I’m still hungry. Really I am.“

The phone was ringing. Mr. Piddles was still staring. Elizabeth told herself to calm down. That she was a grown woman for Christ’s sake… switch was awkward because she didn’t rightly believe in Christ. Until a few minutes ago she didn’t believe in talking cats either but here she was now. “Maybe my cat’s possessed by a demon-”

“Uh- is that you ‘Liza?” It was a man’s voice on the phone.

Elizabeth was confused for a moment, looking to the side. “Oh, that’s you Ian,” she said finally.

“Yeah, Rache is on the toilet,” he said, “She’ll be out in a sec.”

“Oh. Good. Yes,” stammered Elizabeth. “Yes. Good.”

Ian laughed. “So what’s this about a demon?”

“Demon!?” Shit. Mr. Piddles had disappeared from view. Elizabeth climbed up higher on her armchair.

“You ok?” asked Ian.

“Fine!” she blurted.

“Yeah… hey! Here’s Rache! Bye, ‘Liza!” he sounded all too glad to hand over the phone.

“…Stop making faces, Ian. Hey, Elizabeth?” This was Rachel. “What’s up?”

“L-look I need to ask you something,” Elizabeth was still scanning the room for her large, misplaced tabby, “And it’s going to sound crazy.”

“Okay. What is- hey stop it, Ian!” Rachel was giggling.

Elizabeth knew that giggle. It was the same giggle Rachel always had when she and Ian were ready to go home after a night downtown. They weren’t going to bed. “Can you two stop screwing around for two seconds?!”

“Geez, Elizabeth,” sighed Rachel, “Can you calm down?”

“No I can’t calm down! I have a crisis on my hands!”

“Meeeooorrrw.“

Elizabeth snapped around in the direction of the sound but Mr. Piddles was nowhere to be seen.

“Crisis? What sort of crisis?”

“Do you remember that show, Sabrina the Teenage Witch?”

“Yeah? So?”

“You remember Salem? That talking black cat?”

“Yeah, he was great. What are you getting at, Elizabeth?”

“… do you think cats can talk?”

A roar of laughter exploded out of the phone, so sudden Elizabeth almost dropped it. Rachel tried to talk through her gasps for air but failed. That failure only lead to more giggling her part. Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed as she heard the panted breathing of her friend between what she assumed was Ian’s kisses. “…Ian…” she breathed.

That was enough of that; Elizabeth promptly hit the end call button and sighed. “Gross.” Maybe it wasn’t so gross. It had just been a while for Elizabeth. Too long. This wasn’t helping, especially not with her crisis.

“So are they actually a couple or just fuck-buddies?“

Elizabeth screamed, jumping up into the air and tumbling herself and the chair over onto the floor, knocking over a lamp. Elizabeth rubbed her head and was glad not to feel any blood.
“Are you alright?“

Elizabeth sat up. Mr. Piddles was right in front of her, his tail playfully swishing back and forth. Her mouth was open but she didn’t know what to say.

“Do you need more pineapples too?” he asked, “The effect doesn’t last very long, does it?“

“The… effect?” Elizabeth pondered this for a moment. “The pineapple make you talk?”

Mr. Piddles licked his tiny paw at the end of his chubby leg and wiped down his forehead. “Isn’t it obvious? What, did you think that I was going to turn you into a Sailor Scout or something?“

Elizabeth’s eyes went wide. “I love Sailor Moon!”

“I know!” Mr. Piddles chuckled to himself. “But I’m too old to be Luna.”

“Ah… I see,” Elizabeth was little disappointed. Then she figured it was perhaps a little too much to hope that a woman her age could go traipsing downtown in a miniskirt fighting the forces of evil. That kind of stuff only happened to teenagers… with attitude. Then Elizabeth’s mouth pinched together in a determined pout. What was she thinking? ‘A woman her age’?! She was in the prime of her life! Living on her own and her freelance web design was really beginning to pick up! She was not only her own boss but the boss of her own life! She looked down at Mr. Piddles and smiled; heck she was more or less a teenage witch anyway.

“So what are they, anyway?” asked Mr. Piddles.

“Who? Rachel and Ian?” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “They say they aren’t putting labels on anything yet, but they practically live together.”

Mr. Piddles nodded pensively. “Seems silly.”

“Tell me about it.”

Pineapples, Am I Right? (Part 1)

“Hey, Mr. Piddles.”

Elizabeth closed the door behind her locking both deadbolts without thinking, the second and larger one closing with a solid “thunk” accompanied by the sound of Mr. Piddles yowling.

“I know you're hungry little guy, it'll just be a second, okay?”

“Meoooooooowrr.”

“Ah!”

Tangled between her feet for the briefest of moments the big tabby dodged down the hallway oblivious to its owners near demise. Stumbling, she grabbed the old railing along the hallway wall and steadied herself, grateful that the cat hadn't caused her yet another bruise.

“I swear Mr. Piddles, if I fed you as much as you'd like I would just have to clean up more of your little vomits.”

Hanging her keys on the holder by the door though she could hear the cat's scratching at the bin where she kept the food, his yowls echoing down the hallway from the kitchen. She put her big purse, the one that always felt self-concious about looking as much like it did like an old ladies, on the little table like she always did and walked there, her first stop the big plastic bin she kept the Friskies in. Mr. Piddles had a habit of chewing through nearly anything which lacked at least a quarter inch of plastic.

The tinkling of the food in the little porcelain dish sent him into a frenzy of course, his head bobbing around and trying its best to block the food from falling.

“Always hungry, huh Mr. Piddles. You silly little poody pood.”

“Crunch, crunch.”

The top priority taken care of and Mr. Piddles silent but for the sound of his chewing, Elizabeth Spiller slipped her shoes off beside the stove as she did every day and walked on to the bedroom right off the “kitchen.” Honestly, the kitchen, dining room, and living room were all just one room attached to the bedroom and a tiny bathroom but she liked to differenciate them in her head. It made it easier thinking each corner of the studio were separate. Like she had more of a real house and not such a tiny apartment.

It made it easier for her to accept the fact that she was living in such a place even at thirty two. Living in a tiny apartment and still working at the bookstore for so many years. She wouldn't let herself count how many. Not today. The last time she'd counted the years she'd had one to many glasses of wine and she'd had to be escorted from the party by a nice young gentlemen without the best of intentions.

“It's not such a bad life though; I like all this space to myself.” She paused, staring off at the window who's curtains were always drawn. “Though I really should stop talking to myself so much.”

Her shoes there in the little place reserved for them by the stove, her purse by the door, her button down blouse pulled from her shoulders and laid gently in the dirty laundry basket, never more than half full. Her slacks next to them soon and her pajamas pulled from the top cubby of her dresser and soon pulled over her soft pale legs. These were all things as they should be and comforting. The plaid of her cotton sleeping clothes warm against her as she walked towards the stove again and saw the clock above it glowing its gentle green 07:16.

“Slurp. Meeeeooorrrw.”

“Oh Piddles, you're so silly”

Opening the compartment at the bottom of the stove to pull out the little frying pan she petted the cat, scratching him behind the ears.

“Not that you would care, you silly pood, but tonight the menu calls for pineapple curry. Mindy at work said it was quite good mixed in with the sauce and so I thought I'd try it.” Scratching him again behind the ears as he tried his best to push the pan out of her hand with his head she went on, “I thought I'd take a walk on the wild side. Scandal, right?”

Chuckling, she put the pan to the eye as she turned it on and began to assemble the onions and tofu from the fridge before pulling the can of diced pineapple from the pantry. Of course the sound of the can opener would send Piddles into a frenzy but that couldn't be helped. Fighting him away she opened the can, drained it and sat it down on the other side of the stove before turning to the vegetables on the cutting board.

“Silly cat. I promise it's not tuna.”

Of course the onions make her cry though, so she went to grab a preemptive tissue before cutting them only to find the cat's head buried in the big can of pineapple chunks, his whiskers sticking out around the edge.

“Piddles! What are you doing?”

Slapping him on the back of the head as she shouted at him, he pulled his head up and licked his little lips as if he'd just had the finest, freshest tuna.

“What? You weren't eating it.”

“That doesn't matter Mr. Piddles! You can't even digest that stuff, you silly cat!”

“Who are you calling silly? I'm just hungry.”

“Wait. . .”

Freezing, Elizabeth looked at the cat and his lips moving as if in speech, the words traveling as surely through the air towards her as hers had traveled towards him. His tongue still flicking over his lips and licking his chops.

“Pineapples, am I right?”

Easy (Part 3)

But when I look to the top of the snow drift to where I saw the movement, I see only a single silouhette in the bright sunlight which beams from behind it. A person stands there at the crest, tall and regal. Staring down at me I can see only that it is human and female and alone. It is a single silhouette bathed in golden rays and for the briefest moment I am filled with something I long ago forgot the word for.

“Agatha?”

And before I even know what I've done the rope is lying in the snow and my feet are leaving ragged craters in the soft white ground as I run toward the top of the bank, my boots sinking in down to my knees. Fast as I can I am there but as I crest the top she is gone and I am blinded. There is only the golden glow of the harsh sun in this thin air and I can see nothing for a moment but even then, when it finally comes together, there is only a shape running away from me in the snow. Toward the horizon and the sun.

She is beautiful even from here and I know that she is Agatha, her skin as pale and clear as the white of the fresh snow and her body as fit and lean as one who has been forced to live in this hellish waste for years. She is running and as she does her blonde hair waves out behind her and shimmers in the light. My own footsteps fall through the snow like a wounded horse in relation and she quickly moves away as I slow, winded and hurting as her silhouette is gone from view.

It's then that I realize, looking down at my own feet burried in the white that there are no foot prints save my own. As closely as I followed her path it is only my own steps I see and none leading away. None leading toward her or toward anyone.

Since I've no way to keep time I have no way of knowing how much time has passed or how long I've been running. As I begin to follow my steps back toward the fuel it begins to snow once more and I become afraid. Without my own steps to follow and if the weather should turn worse I could die here, nearly within sight of the station. Killed by my own hopes and imagination.

But I do find my way back and the cart is still there, undisturbed. The fuel is safe, for now, and I begin the slow process again of pulling it to a new hiding spot, this time behind a rock out cropping slightly closer to the station. The entire time, how ever long it may be, I force the thought of her from my mind. Force the idea of what it might mean from my mind.

The days are long here but they do not last forever and if I am to survive another night, if I am to live to dream again, I must hide the fuel once more and I must refill the generators. I must make sure they are secure and running so that tonight, when the cloud cover is right to bounce the radio waves off of, I can contact her again. It is miracle enough that I can contact her at all with what little power the set has. It would not do to miss any opportunity.

And I will not tell Agatha tonight of what happened. It would not do to worry her. She has enough on her mind and I know in my heart that I am as much the only hope she has as she is mine.

I only hope that she is also well. Lately she has been sounding more and more bleak and I worry for her sanity. It is all too easy to lose these days.

Easy (Part 2)

The outside world is all but completely white and there's only a slight hint of blue in the sky to tell me where the earth meets the horizon. I can’t help but look out at the landscape and see an empty old house with white sheets tossed over all of the furniture to protect them from dust. But it’s pointless really; the sheets are there to stay, the house will never be a home again.

I venture out during the day out of habit mostly. Sight is just as difficult in the white of day light as in the the near black of darkness. Though it is safer in the day, it is only a bit. Markers I left in the snow, sparse breadcrumbs to ensure I didn’t lose myself in the tundra, are barely visible now. New snow white sheets draped over the old furniture hide them.

I had tried to hide the cache in a way that would be too difficult for others to find, but not so difficult as to where I would not be able to find it myself. The first marker meant to travel west for a hundred paces. The second was east for fifty. The third was west again, for twenty-five. The fourth marker in the in the snow was the location, but a fifth and six marker were placed in the distance to lead anyone who might have attempted to follow the trail astray.

As I dig, her words echo in my head. She’s right, it is not easy. I’ve reached the point where I can’t remember how many days I’ve been here. I kept time for a while with my watch, but the battery eventually died. Honestly I've no idea how long it was dead before I noticed. After I did though, I kept with the clock at the station, but as I began to run lower on fuel, I killed all operations unnecessary to survival. And after that, I attempted to keep time with the passing of the sun. It moves slower here, the days and nights are hours longer than I’m accustomed to. I did the math to count the hours for a while, but eventually it grew tiresome and I deemed it pointless and ceased.
Actually, everything seemed pointless, after a time. Survival is our base instinct, our one true purpose, some would say. However, I found, the more I was forced to struggle, to persist, to revert to the base instincts of survival, the less I truly wanted to. I determined that was what separates us from animals. They seek simply to survive. We wish to live.

Then I found her voice, the voice that saved my life.

I play out different scenarios in my head; vivid and intricate day fantasies to carry me until the night when I can sleep and dream proper. In my mind, I've shaped her form as if she were molded from the sun. Carved out of gold, in my mind she radiates with enough warmth to melt the snow that's covered this world four times over. She is my hope, my fuel, and the only thing keeping me from shutting down and having a white sheet tossed over me like everything else in this forsaken house that is my world.

I pull the cache from the snow, four fuel canisters covered by a tarp and tied together on a rudimentary sled. It is not incredibly hard to pull; I had the forethought to hide it up hill, getting the difficult part over with early. Though now, finding somewhere better to hide it will be much more challenging than the first time.

Of course it's then, while I'm struggling to pull the sled from where it's lodge in the snow, that I see something out of the corner of my eye. A fraction of a second really, something streaking across my vision, disrupting the infinite white. I keep pulling, trying to tell myself that it was a bird, though I had not seen a bird in all my time here, or a mouse, though I had only seen them scurrying about the nooks and crannies of the station.

Then another something darts by in my peripherally and it becomes nearly impossible to convince myself that these are not the larger vermin that stole the fuel from the generators. Impossible to convince myself that they've not tracked me down to find the rest.

Easy (Part 1)

“I never said it would be easy.”

The sound of her words have barely left the ether that is the space between us when the gentle sound of the power stopping reaches my ears. I can hear the transistors cooling with the loss of energy and I know that I've lost her again. The generators have failed and again, I am alone.

As long as there is gas in the generators there is hope, or so I've told myself these last few weeks. If I can keep the power on for long enough there will be hope; not enough hope to assuage my fears, but more than I've a right to have. More hope for the future and more hope for her.

Walking from my workshop and down the dark corridor though, the little flashlight showing my way before me, her words echo in my mind and I feel the aloneness as a tingling in the air and a depth in my heart. The aloneness that comes when her voice is gone and it is only the idea of her and the dreams that keep me moving. The dreams that I tell myself come from her somehow, through the ether and through the space between us. The dreams are what keep me going as much as the idea of her light out in the darkness.

When I get nearer the door though, I notice that the light is gone from the sky in the window and I look to my watch to find the time is long past when I'd thought. It is night and with the night I hope that the generators have stopped themselves from lack of fuel, from only the lack of my attention to them and not some other force.

I am wrong.

There is a scurrying when I punch the little plastic light by the door and I see the mice moving away from me. Two of them, it seems as if they run together. Even as small, alone, and emaciated as they are I can see they have each other and through that they have strength. One of them looks up at me and pauses, the light of my flashlight glinting off its little pupils and I swear there is an understanding there. He is secure in his companion and I am not.

Looking away I open the door and I see that there are other vermin out, and larger ones. It hasn't been my lack of attention that's killed the generators, it seems, but something else. I silently hope they have found only the generators themselves and not the store of fuel I've hidden away as I click the door softly shut along with the dimming of my light. I hope too that perhaps they haven't seen me; hope is all I have these days, at any given moment.

Quietly listening though on the other side of the door it seems I've been lucky tonight. The steps of many feet move quickly away and I quietly step outside with the quick beating of my heart the only sound to fall upon the snow beneath my feet.

The generators are still there and what's more they are chained securely. It is only the half empty gas can I'd left beside them that are gone, along with the fuel from each tank, siphoned by the thieves. The vermin were thorough tonight but they were quick and they've left my power sources at least. The cache of fuel was beyond them as well and is safe but when the sun rises I shall have to hide it all again and better than I have before. I know that I have been lax in that, so focused on my work these past few weeks.

Focused on my work as well as on the dreams. The dreams of her.

Rabo's Rambles, the Tumblr

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http://rabosrambles.tumblr.com/