The Cat Shelter
“This yours?” I accused.
The cat didn’t dignify me with a look. Both he and I knew I didn’t have the metal to maintain a stern demeanor around such a regal figure for more than a few seconds. The cat simply yawned and stretched, flopping onto his side. What need had a king to address his servants? Needless to say I caved instantly, heading towards the paper towel dispenser to hide my smile. As I wiped up the evidence, I couldn’t help but wonder when exactly wet clumps of regurgitated cat fur had stopped bothering me. ‘Probably somewhere between getting your own cat and deciding to spend your Friday nights volunteering at a cat shelter,’ a voice grinned in the back of my head. I popped open the trash can with my free hand, dropping the uncomfortably warm package inside. ‘I am living my best life,’ the voice piped up dryly as it landed with a dull thunk.
Rolling up my sleeves, I headed to the industrial-size sink, dancing around several equally disinterested shelter kings, calling out a quick, “Sorry!” and “Excuse me!” to each one. Just like the first, they paid me no mind. Standing before the sink I reached out, turning the blue-ringed tap and letting out a breath as the crisp water ran down my hands, freezing the skin and leaving my wrists aching. My eyes became heavy as I drank in the numbing cold, fervently wishing the rest of me were half this cool. I looked at the cats around me, wondering for the umpteenth time that day why all the kitties weren’t stretched out the floor or crowded beneath the massive ceiling fans, vying for any and all available cold patches. Instead, miraculously, most of cats seemed to be huddled together in their beds. ‘Are cats just better at regulating their body temperatures?’ I wondered, shutting off the faucet. Wiping my hands on my fur covered jeans, I unzipped my hoodie and tied it around my waist, hoping the fan’s meager breeze would stave off the heat for a little while longer: twenty minutes, to be precise—then I could go home and eat all the ice cream I wanted. In the meantime however, I decided to head downstairs, ready to begin my secondary duties as a volunteer: attending to the shelter’s inhabitants’ mental and physical wellbeing. At least, that’s what the senior volunteers called it. I called it petting the cats.
As soon as I disembarked from the last step and entered First Floor Territory, I was immediately greeted by one of the shelter’s self-appointed ambassadors. Anastasia, top liaison of the first and second floors, bolted toward me, bushy tail held high in greeting. Her squeaky mews carried out across the downstairs, letting the other members of the floor know a foreigner had crossed into their land. I returned the enthusiastic greeting, dropping to the floor and patting my lap, grinning as Anastasia leapt aboard, purring like a motor. It was only fair I pay the entrance fee, but even as I scratched her chin and rubbed her back, I could not ignore all thirteen pounds of added heat sitting atop me. However, seeing as how my only options were to rudely push the cat off my lap or simply suffer in silence, I gladly opted for the latter.
Not long after, I had adequately paid my dues and Anastasia sauntered off, presumably to go find food or bask in someone else’s love. For my part, I spent the next fifteen minutes wandering from cat to cat, seeing who wanted to be pet and who wanted to take a chunk out of my arm. As I wandered, I tried to stay directly under the ceiling fans as much as possible. I had hoped as the night wore on the setting sun would cool the building down, but no such luck. I couldn’t help but fixate on the peculiarity of it all especially when the other volunteers, complaining loudly about the cold, closed the gated-off garage door, dispersing several disgruntled window cats in their wake. As the minutes dragged on, little beads of sweat began to pool at my temple, resembling a watery, upside-down crown. Even as I sat crouched before my favorite cat Bell rubbing her back, I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling gripping my stomach. I swallowed hard, hoping the saliva would wash the feeling down. ‘You’re being such a baby,’ I chided myself weakly. ‘It’s just a little heat…’
Not five minutes later, my head sagged against my shoulders, having become more iron than bone, and my knees, now matchsticks, shook, protesting the added weight.
I grimaced, using my free hand to lean against a nearby scratching post. ‘It’s fine,’ I told myself mechanically. Over the past hour that simple phrase had become my mantra, keeping me safe and oblivious as beads of sweat rolled down my back and limbs vacillated between weighing lighter than a feather, then heavy as an oak. As the night wore on, a strange tingling started to bubble through my blood like soda. But none of that mattered, because it was fine.
I closed my eyes, sucking in a few deep, steady breaths. ‘It’s fine,’ I pressed, blinking heavily. But even as I opened my eyes my mind remained foggy and the heat persisted, clinging to my arms and legs like flypaper. Slowly, shakily, I straightened, once again swallowing down the lie. Fumbling in my pocket, I pulled out my phone, checking the lock screen for the third time that minute. 8:24pm, it read. Six minutes until my shift ended. I swallowed again, and with it went my pride, foul and acrid.
‘This isn’t fine.’
Taking a deep breath, I turned unsteadily towards the front, wobbling to where a trio of older women sat around a polished wooden desk, laughing at some unheard joke.
“Excuse me?” I interrupted as politely and professionally as I could. Even as I opened my mouth the buzzing in my head worsened and I fought back a grimace. The three ladies looked up from their conversation, faces bearing matching expressions of mild surprise. “Would it be alright if I headed out early? I don’t feel very well…”
One of the women the owner perhaps, I couldn’t remember tutted sympathetically, flapping a dismissive hand. “Of course, of course. Thanks for all your work today. Hope you feel better!” I nodded gratefully even as the women turned back to their conversation, having already forgotten my existence, and strode as confidently towards the door as I could, pulling it shut behind me with a click.
I shuffled into the empty night vaguely aware of a faint breeze carrying the smells of leaves and gasoline. A thin pale moon the color of burnt cinder hung stapled to the sky, surrounded by cheap imitations of stars. Whoever had draped this poorly designed replica of the night sky had badly missed their mark. The real moon was far more beautiful, its iridescence shimmering across the sky as a missive of hope to sailors and young lovers alike. The stars were supposed to wink and sparkle like glittering teardrops against the deep navy backdrop, flanking the moon on its trajectory across the great expanse as dutiful sentinels. But this was not the sky to greet me as I stumbled out of the warehouse. The sky I saw was lifeless and cheap, poorly rendered and flat; the result of a half-baked, discarded art project, yet that was my audience, my only witness across the small stretch of cracked pavement that made up the empty parking lot and rows upon rows of empty warehouses. Far off, past that cheap mockery of night sky, distant cars swept through the pitch, the fleeting growls of their engines the only sounds to permeate the emptiness, here in an instant, gone in a flash.
I gasped desperately, now acutely aware of the burning just beneath my skin and the fog that threatened to envelop my senses, stealing away my consciousness. In the few steps it had taken me to move from the office to the parking lot, my condition worsened tenfold. The burning under my skin now transformed into intense, concentrated waves, and my eyes began to blink in and out of focus. My car was only a few yards away; all I had to do was reach it. I took a few purposeful steps forward, forcing my boots to carry my feet one in front of the other.
With each lurching step my movements became more uneven, my gait rapidly deteriorating to that of a drunken sailor. Even as my eyes remained locked on the dull silver car before me, my head swam and my vision continued to blur, the corners of my eyes quickly sliding into oblivion as if swallowed by some gaping, unseen chasm. I sucked in huge, desperate mouthfuls of air, but there was no oxygen for my lungs to absorb. Why wasn’t there any oxygen?
My grasping fingers, unaided by sight, smacked down on cool metal, and I blinked desperately, fumbling for the door handle. My fingers curled around something slim and familiar and I heaved the door open, collapsing like a stringless marionette into the car seat just as my knees gave out. The back of my head slammed against the headrest as I sat gasping, disjointed thoughts whirling around my mind like ghosts lost in a fog. My sight continued to slip in and out of focus as I jammed my hand into my pocket, floundering around for my phone. Cool glass pressed against my palm and I yanked, ripping the device free of the fabric. My head lolled forward as I forced myself to not lose focus even as I stared blearily into my lap, my home screen staring back at me patiently. I squinted, trying to force my brain to remember what I was doing. It was so important, whatever it was. ‘Why do I have my phone out? What’s going on? I need to go to the hospital. I need help.’
I felt as though I were controlling the movements of a strange stone mannequin rather than my own as I willed the mannequin’s fingers forward, dragging its thumb towards the green phone icon. Success! The screen had changed, and I was now looking at a keypad. I whimpered, trying desperately to remember the number to 9-1-1, when suddenly a voice, louder, more forceful than the rest, erupted forth with a bellow, sending all my other thinly strung together thoughts scattering like confetti in the wind. ‘NO AMBULANCE!’ It roared with the strength of a thousand voices. ‘IT’S TOO EXPENSIVE!’
My head, ears, and mouth were stuffed with cotton. It felt as if some unseen giant were standing just behind me, using its monstrous hands to envelop my head, shielding my senses from the world. ‘Quick!’ Another softer voice urged. ‘Call Mom!’ I stared down at my phone screen, still awaiting orders, untouched. The keypad hazed in and out of focus as the stone mannequin’s thumb struggled to move in accordance with my muddled thoughts. ‘2… 4… 2… 6… no, that should have been a 7…’ Another, stronger wave of heat swept my body and I convulsed, scrambling for the door. Wrenching the door open I all but fell out, vomiting onto the pavement below. Shivering, feeble, and sweaty, I slumped back into the car seat. ‘This is not fine,’ was my last flickering thought before I passed out.
~+~
If you were to ask me what became of that fateful night, I would no more dignify you with a satisfactory response than any one of the shelter’s cats. I cannot tell you how long I laid slumped in that car, nor when exactly I got enough strength to finish dialing my mother’s cell and beg her, voice weak with tremors, to come pick me up. I cannot tell you what it was like, waiting for my parents in that bleak, uncanny night, shivery and sweaty, wondering what was going to happen to me. And I can’t, nor most likely will I ever be able to tell you just what happened. It’s been nearly a year since the incident, and nothing of the like has come sweeping back to finish the job. Sometimes life is just as uncanny as the stories we tell to escape.
___________________________________
Kaitlin E. Bernhardt is a sophomore pursuing a Baccalaureate of Arts in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Language and a minor in Creative Writing and Literary Arts and a minor in Spanish. This is her first published writing piece.