Angel & Kirby

I walked up to my apartment and checked to see if there was mail in the box to the right of my door. There was just a letter from mom and some underwear catalog. I went inside to find Kirby in his cat form lying on the couch watching television.

“I guess this means you figured out the whole magic thing?”

“Meow.”

“Okay... So what do you know about my dad?” That had been bothering me all day. I nearly smothered a poor man’s sandwich in mayo and he was not happy.

“Meow?”

“Kirby, come on.”

“Mew.” He began licking a paw.

“You can’t just say something like that to a person and not explain it! Please, Kirby.” I couldn’t believe I was begging a cat for information.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re complaining,” said the now human Kirby. “I don’t know where my dad is either and I’m just fine.”

“You call what you are fine? You won’t go anywhere with me because you’re afraid of cars and redheads.”

“Okay, my fears are irrelevant to my fine...ness,” he muttered while absently batting a pen on the table.

“Fine... what do you want for dinner?” I’ll keep trying, but I’m too worn out now after the mayonnaise incident and other incidents involving various condiments that afternoon.

“What do I usually eat for dinner?”

I sighed. He makes a really good cat, but he sure is a weird person. “Canned or dry?”

“Canned, please,” he said with a grin.

“Come here, I’ll show you how to work the can opener.” He got up and followed me into the kitchen.

I explained the proper usage of the can opener to him and let him try to open the beef-flavored mush. “Hey, I know that sound,” he said, turning the handle of the opener. He got the top of the can off and I handed him a fork from the drawer.

I watched him eat for a minute before grabbing a can of Pepsi from the refrigerator and joining him at the table. “It is so weird watching someone eat that with a fork,” I said as I sat down, taking a sip.

“Hey, I’m sorry about your dad. I didn’t think I knew anything you didn’t, really.”

“But what do you know?”

“Nothing,” he said, looking down, “I don’t know anything.”

“Don’t lie to me. Have I ever lied to you?”

“No, but... I can’t say anything.”

“Why not?” Why couldn’t he tell me where my dad was?

“As a cat, I hear stuff I’m not supposed to. I can’t just go repeating all of it. Where would you be if I did?” I guess I had a really pathetic look on my face because he just leaned over and hugged me. “Believe me, okay? I know your mom should have told you, but even then you were a really weird kid and she thought maybe there was something wrong with you mentally. She was afraid telling you would make you worse.” I just leaned my head on his shoulder for a minute before getting up and going to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I just wanted to get away from him if he wasn’t going to help me.

The next morning, I woke up to my cat licking my hand like old times. “Quit it, Kirby, I’m mad at you.” He looked at me with those big cat eyes for a few seconds before turning around and walking out. I got out of bed and started my routine. I found a pair of jeans that needed to be repaired. I’d sew them up when I got home. Then, I dug through a drawer until I found my work shirt because on Thursday I had to go straight to work after my last class. Then I got in the shower and washed my hair. After my shower, I dried off and got dressed and brushed my hair. I cleaned Kirby’s litter box and poured some “Healthy Kitty” (now with REAL TUNA!) into his bowl on the floor, causing him to come running. I poured myself some cereal and made some toast. I ate all of this and got a drink of juice from the carton in the fridge. I set the bowl of leftover milk in the floor next to Kirby, who meowed what was probably an apology. All in all, it was a pretty average day. I planned to call mom and ask about dad right after I finished sewing my pants and writing an essay about why people thought Sigmund Freud was a nut job (it might have been because he thought everything was about either sex some childhood trauma).

She called first, actually. I picked up the phone. “Hey, honey! I just wanted to see how things were going,” she said cheerfully.

“Where’s dad?” Good job, kid, just come out and say it. Why do I call myself kid when I reprimand myself?

“Justin, sweetie, I told you when you were little, he-”

“No, mom. Really, where is he?”

“I told you, he’s living happily in Canada with his new wife.”

“Mom, stop it.”

“He... Well, he... Okay, Justin, you have to understand, I told you what I did back then to protect you. You were so sad back then. You didn’t have any friends except the cat and you just seemed so strange. I thought there was something wrong with you, something that was just recently confirmed, if you remember a certain doctor visit. I thought the truth would just make things worse.”

“You were never going to tell me?”

“When you were older, but I didn’t expect you to be older so soon.”

“Mom it’s been 13 years. You’ve had plenty of time to prepare. What happened to him?”

“Well, honey, he’s dead,” she said gently.

“I’d gathered that much. How?”

“Honey, what’s making you ask all these questions?”

“Mother, would you stop!” I yelled.

“Okay, okay!” I could hear that she was crying, “Your grandfather on his side had just died, the one who lived in Florida. He and I were having some issues and your father was a very, very emotional man...He’d been getting more and more depressed. The only thing that made him happy was being around you. But you were away at camp that week, remember? He was so down then. And he lost his job. So he took the elevator to the top floor of the office and... and...” She was now sobbing too hard to finish, but I got it.

“It’s okay mom, I know what happened next. I have to go.”

“I love you, Justin.”

“Bye, mom.”

My dad had committed suicide. I’d contemplated it before, but could never imagine actually doing it. Imagine feeling that hopeless. I couldn’t believe that my dad had been so unhappy. My dad who had always been happy as far as I could see. I took my wallet out of my pocket and took his picture out from behind the one of Kirby to look at him. I remembered the day it was taken. It was the first time mom ever let me play with her camera. I followed Kirby around taking pictures of him doing cat things (licking himself, using the litter box, eating, napping, etc.) until my dad got home from work and I used the last picture on the roll of film to take a picture of him standing in front of his car in his work suit and that end-of-the-roll noise scared me. I thought I’d broken the camera and mommy was going to be mad. I laughed about that. But he had jumped off a building a year later. I curled into a fetal position on the couch and cried harder than I had in a very long time.

Kirby, who’d been watching me from the kitchen, came in and sat beside me, still in his cat form and pressed his face into my hand. I scratched his ears for a second and he curled up against my chest, purring.

It was so cute, as soon as I typed “Kirby, who’d been watching me from the kitchen, came in and sat beside me, still in his cat form...” my adorable kitty, Mikey’s head just popped up over the side of the desk, coming to see what I was doing. He really is the coolest cat ever. Kirby’s personality is part Mikey. His appearance, though, is based on my old cat, Socks.

People who have reviewed (Violent Pornography, Silver Rain Fell, and The Sacred Night) thanks for saying nice things. And The Sacred Night reviewed 4 times to tell me things that I should fix... But I’ll wait and see if these become an issue later before I decide to fix them. She’s my sister, though, she’s supposed to be all helpful and stuff. Glad things are going smoothly so far though... I haven’t had the whole writer’s block thing that has ended many a story prematurely.