NOTE: As I have promised that all these essays will have something to do with comic books, a decent respect for editorial clarity demands I explain I was in the midst of writing the first issue of The Amazing Exploits of Boreana Bean, Enigma of the North during the course of the following incident.
"I think Molly's dying." said my wife, quietly, solemnly — with the, resigned grace of an undertaker or a tax accountant. The vision my beloved has of life can be a trifle dark, so I did not immediately search for a body. "Dying, how?" I asked cautiously. We were seated in different sections of the room, she in the arm chair and I in the sofa, with her grandmother's table between us, so she was largely a disembodied voice.
"Dying of LIFE, like all of us," she intoned. "She is our oldest cat, and I'm sure we're going to lose her soon." I reflected on these statements, each of which was true, depending on your choice of definition.
"Yes, dear," I responded, carefully avoiding a direct contradiction, as any sane husband would. "You're probably right, only ... "
"Only what? You know how sick she was a few months ago. Terribly sick; I'm sure that sickness is coming back. And now we don't have the money to cure her. She is going to die." This last was said with assurance; an acceptance of the ultimate tragedy of life that was almost joyous.
"Well, yes, she was sick five years ago," I responded. "But she recovered. You were saying just last week how well she looked."
"That's just the shame of it; that she can decline so quickly; Cat are such fragile creatures." By this time I had located Molly. She was stretched out full length on the arm of the sofa that I was occupying. Her breathing was easy and regular; her eyes were closed. She might have been sleeping. Had I not been warned, I wouldn't have recognized she was dying.
"She doesn't actually look sick," I ventured.
"Of course not. You have to be sensitive to the slightest changes," remarked my beloved. "Where is she?"
"On the sofa arm."
My darling sighed mournfully. "Of course she is. She never leaves there. Every day she lies more and more still, soaking in her own wastes; one day she'll never move at all." I examined the cat. It was true she was very quiet — although, to be fair, she was no more quiescent than our other three cats; it was a very warm day and they were all draped about the furniture, in attitudes that aped coma. Sensing my regard, Molly slitted open her eyes, watching me watch her. There didn't seem to be any wastes.
"There don't seem to be any wastes," I offered.
"That you can see," my darling said ominously. "Men have a notorious capacity for self-deception. You don't see life as it is, teetering always on the edge of pain and mortality." Molly offered her chin to be scratched; I scratched it. She began to purr. My wifey continued. "After all, she is over twenty. That's very old for a cat."
"We think she's almost twenty. She could be as young as 17. And cats can live to 25."
"Healthy cats can. She's been sick, remember."
Molly, pleased at the attention, rolled over and let me scratch her belly. Then she yawned, a full, satisfying yawn, like cranberries in November. "She's well now."
"Not so well. She doesn't move, remember?" For a moment we were all quiet, each with our own private thoughts. Molly's thoughts were of chin scratching. She tilted her chin at an almost imperceptible bias to encourage me; thus encouraged, I scratched.
"You have to consider that Molly had three homes before us, and two of her previous owners died on her. Her life has been an endless tragedy. She is probably ready to rest." Molly had wearied of scratching and was now examining a tiny mote of lint on the soft arm. She sniffed at it curiously.
"Maybe she just doesn't have anywhere to go." Molly had now discovered a second lint mote, this one a darkish gray. She rubbed at it slowly with the side of her lip.
"Well, if you want to be complaisant, I guess there's nothing I can say." She sighed the sigh of martyred wives everywhere. "We both know you have history of ignoring the unpleasant side of life." Molly sneezed; a delicate, almost genteel little snort. "What was that? Was that Molly?" The cat sneezed again.
"That was Molly. I think she got into some dust."
"Or her lungs are finally failing. Do you think we should take her to the vet? Maybe there is something we can do for her." Molly rubbed a paw over her face. This concern was catching. I couldn't remember the last time Molly had been to the vet, but it had been a while. It seemed to me, now that I thought about it, that I had heard her sneezing earlier that morning; or had it been a wheezing cough? Molly shivered a little, or was it my imagination? My dearest had bounded out of her seat.
"Does Molly look like she's going to run? Sick animals go off into a hidey-hole somewhere and die alone. We'll only know Molly is gone when the smell of dead cat fills the house." Molly, as was pointed out before, is an old cat; she doesn't exactly understand fluent English, but she does know certain words, chief among them: Molly and Vet. She had just heard them used in conjunction. This was never a good sign. She was suddenly all alertness. Furthermore, her own name had now been uttered several times in a way that indicated she was the object of a serious conversation. This was not the sort of notice she liked; it rarely worked towards her own best interests. Subtlely, her weight shifted to her back legs.
"I think she's getting ready to run," I said.
"Try and catch her." My dear one had circled the room, and was coming up on Molly's side in a flanking maneuver. "Once she gets away we'll never..." Molly started to move and I gathered her to my chest. Seeing hands all about her, she panicked and sprang, climbing up my face; one needle-like claw entered the capillary-rich area on the side of my nose. Suddenly, my face was sodden with gore.
"Oh, my God! You're bleeding!" Reaching forward protectively, my sweetness over-balanced and her dear little knee came down on my left instep; I screamed out a a strangled squawk, jerked my head and pushed her thumb nail into my right eye. Molly, thoroughly spooked, drove her rear claws into my scalp and bounced, first to the rear of the sofa and then, when that proved slippery, to the screen covering the inside of the bay window directly behind the sofa. These screens were in three tall, narrow aluminum casings; Molly was climbing the nearest, rightward, one.
What she didn't know, — and what she could hardly be expected to guess — was that these screens were not well-anchored and held in place only by friction. When she reached the upper third of the screen it began to separate from the window; cat and screen fell backwards. I turned just in time to see Molly plummeting towards us, her green eyes wide with the betrayal of every physical law she had ever know. The screen crashed over our heads; Molly leapt sidewise and vanished into the bowels of the house, in a flurry of legs and fur.
I dabbed at the blood with my second-best shirt. "Well, she moved," I observed. My dearest reflected.
"True, but she's getting high-strung. I don't think that's a good sign."
NOTE: The doctor says I won't lose the eye; further, neither my foot, my wife's knee, nor the screen was broken. Molly the cat is fine. Thanks for asking.
