Strays:

He sat down on his usual bench. Pre-packed lunch in hand. His whiskey in a flask and a lighter in his pocket. His job was tiresome, monotonous, a song he could sing off by heart, but he hated the tune. He’d made his money and understood there was nothing left for him. Every day was a repetition of the last. The same three meals. The same suit. The same brand of cigarettes and whiskey. Then returning to the same barren apartment. Every day felt as though it existed outside the constraints of time. He operated in his own universe. One that was separated from the qualms of human emotion. It was in this desolate numbness that he had succumbed to his life of boredom and isolation.

In a nearby telephone box, he heard a distant ring. A ring he was drawn to for his finger was bare. The lonely monarch with no one to carry on his name. He stood up, packing the bags under his eyelids into a neatly filed briefcase. With a cigarette hanging loosely, he made his way to it. A dirty habit that he lacked the energy to kick. A familiar voice spoke from all those years ago. She said, “I want to see you. It’s been far too long. I know you never loved me, but I’ve never seen a face like yours, and I need it more than ever. I want to trace your freckles. So I can say goodbye.” Through the smoke, he thought he choked on a girl he had known. “It was you who saw me best, and I’ve never felt so understood. I’ve tried a million times, but the rest weren’t any good.” He placed the phone back on its hook and hung his head back. Wiped the sweat from his forehead, running his hand through a perfect head of hair. A voice that he recalled. A woman who had been married to a rich man overseas. A woman who felt so lonely she mistook lust for love. This woman paid for dinners, bought him clothes and gave the stray cat a temporary home. He played his part and reaped the rewards.

The man left the booth and walked to the nearest train station. He didn’t need an address or a time. Where she’d be was obvious, and his lateness didn’t matter either. His hourglass had long since lost its sand. He thought back to how he had left her in the winter. It was simple. One day, he stopped showing up. The cat had moved on. Maybe it was the cold that drove him out. Snowflakes that fell so softly it almost hurt. The pavements they’d traced with matching footsteps. Hands that interlocked out of necessity rather than love. His actions were those of a dancer atop the music box. She would wind him up, and as that melody tinkled out, his mechanical operations. During those days, he felt plastic. An action figurine in the hands of an innocent child who would eventually rip him limb from limb. When he held her, it was out of obligation. An obligation to do what was expected. An obligation to be human. He was sure she suspected something was wrong as she felt how cold his arms and torso were. When she pressed her ear to his chest, he would wonder if it was silent or if she could hear the steady ticking of his clockwork heart. A heart that had never faltered or flickered. One constant, steady rhythm, unchanged.

As the man boarded the empty train carriage, watching those familiar snowflakes fall once more. It felt as though nothing had ever changed. All those years had passed by, but the sun was still in the sky. The earth was still beneath his feet, and those painful, aching snowflakes continued to settle against the concrete, tucking themselves softly into bed. If all of this were constant and unwavering, was he the same? Destined to remain unaltered forever. A cardboard cut-out of where a person should be. He liked to think of himself as this lonesome stray cat wandering down back alleys with his green eyes piercing against the dark, growing drunk on stolen milk and catnip. If he were a stray cat, what was she? A house-cat? A tabby cat accompanying a lonesome sailor out on the grand ocean, catching mice when she pleases? His mind couldn’t settle on a conclusion and instead landed back on that familiar blank page he always returned to when something started feeling too real for his liking.

His reflection glared back at him against the fogged-up glass above the empty, torn seats opposite him. How many different people had sat in those seats? People with lives equally as complicated as his. People with children, partners, homes, lives and memories. Frayed from the abstract brutality of life. His face was perfect as usual. Not a wrinkle in sight. He resented that. Wrinkles were proof of life. Proof of hardship. Each furrow on the forehead came from thinking too hard. Lines around the eyes formed from squinting in confusion. Concepts that felt entirely foreign to him. They were symbolic of existence. Symbolic of experience. Experience he was devoid of. That wasn’t right. He had experienced life. Its constant thrashing against the current. The highs and lows of realising the local store doesn’t have his usual brand of cigarettes. Running late for work, and even the complicated uncertainty of what others, even her, may have described as love. His face failed to show any of this. He had cast it all off. Was it too painful? Was he weak and couldn’t stand to face life like normal people do? He was a coward. A coward who had run away from everything that remotely scared him. Instead of pain, he had chosen the simplicity of a plain, uneventful life. In doing this, he had removed his ability to feel. Not only pain but joy as well. The waves of happiness that ebbed and flowed in a world designed upon maximising experience. To live was to have felt. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t aged since all those years ago. No matter how much he smoked or drank. He was a ghost pretending he was still alive. When in reality he died all those years ago, the very second he decided that he no longer wanted to be human. A ghost dressed in the clothes of a salaryman.

As he got off the train, he was greeted aggressively by an advert for children’s toys, obviously aimed at new parents. A whole world that he had never experienced. He had visited this station hundreds of times before, absent-mindedly slugging along as he dragged himself to work. But he’d never seen this poster before. He probably just hadn’t noticed it. It felt different, though. As if the universe was screaming out at him that this was his last opportunity to make a change before it was over. A wave of inexplicable emotions of guilt washed over him. It felt as though he was drowning. As though someone was grabbing him and dragging him down into the unknown. Tucking him softly into the seabed. The sand felt like grit against his skin. For a man who had lived his life as an emotionless mannequin, he was suddenly sinking back into humanity. But why now? Was it her? His head was spinning, and his hands were drenched with sweat. He desperately reached out, leaning against the poster for support. He was looking at his life through a fish-eye lens, and everything felt nauseatingly distorted. This felt like punishment. Divine intervention. Had he made an error in going to visit her? No. He knew what this was. He’d felt it before. Before his job interviews, before asking a girl out on a date for the first time, before his first day of school. It was nerves. He was nervous. His head was splitting open. The sky felt too close, and he was growing awfully claustrophobic. His shaking hands reached for the cigarettes. As it lit, it felt like stitches against his head. His suit of flesh was being stitched back together. Collecting his breath, he tenderly touched his head, attempting to collect his brain. This wasn’t like him. Such vulnerability felt like weakness, and to prove his strength to both himself and God, he turned and kicked the poster. The cigarette fell from his lips, hissing against the damp snow, followed by a silence that he had failed to notice before. It was a futile act of rebellion. One that gained nothing except dragging him down into the awareness of the stupidity of the situation. He was a puppet that had been cut from its maker’s strings and now hung limply. He had to see her. Now more than ever.

He began to walk towards her hotel in long, powerful strides. Strides that entirely juxtaposed how he felt. If he could just continue pretending that his mask of sanity wasn’t crumbling, then by tomorrow, he could return to the emptiness of regular life. The hotel towered over him. The neon sign flickered mockingly. Somehow, it knew just how close he was to shattering into thousands of different pieces. It could see his fragility, and he hated that. As he entered, the carpet reminded him of all the times he’d been here before. Memories that were trapped in its horrible, faded red and sea-sick green pattern. The elevator clattered its way up towards the 12th floor. He stood awkwardly in the corner, repeatedly glancing at the floor, thinking it could fall from under his feet at any second. That he would disappear into a gaping hole that would swallow his existence right up. Nobody would miss him. But maybe she would? Maybe she’d sit there curled up in a knot waiting for his knock on the door. Waiting for him to hold her and say, “I’m sorry I’m late. I’m here now”. As the elevator doors clanged open, he hesitated. He couldn’t help it. What if she’s not here, and it was all one big joke that he hadn’t known about? Let’s all laugh at the idiot who cast away his life because it was all too scary. As the doors began to close again, it spurred him into motion, and he jammed his thumb against the open button, attempting to empty his mind. Not for the first time, he wished he could just pluck it out of his skull and shake all of his thoughts into a sad puddle on the floor. He left the elevator and stumbled his way to her room number, counting them all as he went. Before he could even debate his next course of action, he was already knocking.

The door swung open, crying out on its rusted hinges. There she stood, wearing a dress that was certainly not suited for the harsh climate of the city in winter. She smiled with all of her teeth crooked and imperfect. He politely returned the smile, glancing away from her. Her hair was a depressing shade of grey, matching a face that had been weathered from a life well lived. He’d stayed twenty-eight while she’d lost her beauty. As he inhaled, preparing to speak, he could smell her expensive perfume, and it reeked of desperation. “I can’t stay for long”, he said. His first words, and he was already mapping out his escape route. She ignored him, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into the room. Another stench violated his nose. The room smelt of cheap cigarettes and even cheaper alcohol. It was a sickly sweet combination that made the room feel more like a lobby in a dentist’s office. He pulled away from her, moving hastily to the table that had a complimentary bottle of wine accompanied by two wine glasses.

“Don’t open that. They’ll charge me,” she laughed, evidently finding his irritation deeply amusing. He cracked the bottle anyway. He poured himself a glass without even offering her one. He finished the whole glass in one go and went to pour himself another without hesitation. He could feel his shadow standing behind him. Grabbing at his shoulders with his collarbones crushing down on his spine. As the alcohol hit his stomach, he straightened up and fixed his hair, aware that he probably looked a mess. Her face never wavered for a second. She was far too enamoured. He wanted to tuck the loose strands of hair behind her ear. The more he stared at her, the more he could see that face that he’d convinced himself he never loved. The aching feeling in his chest worsened; he thought his ribs could crack open at any moment, and he’d fall apart. Maybe start sobbing on his hands and knees in front of her.

“I need you. You're the man I’ve always wanted.”

How could that be? How could someone who doesn’t even know themself be an ideal partner to someone else? She was deluded. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell her that he missed her. That he’d put his life on pause while he waited for her. It wasn’t possible, though.

Instead, he said, “You’ve grown ugly. Did you know you were once so beautiful? What happened? Did you give yourself away to men you never loved?” His tone was envious. How dare she have lived a life? They were supposed to be nothing together. Two stray cats. Her face flickered with confusion for a second before that almost artificial smile returned.

“I love you. I might be ugly now, but you’re still handsome. I always preferred handsome men anyway”. Was that all she could say? That he was handsome. It was true, though. That’s all there was to him. A body. He knew that it wasn’t him that she desired. She just wanted to feel desired. Wanted to feel needed. Something that he couldn’t live without. Partially, it was true. He hadn’t lived without her. She moved towards the bed and lay down, propping her head with a pillow. She grunted the whole time with those weird grunts that elderly people who’ve lost control of themselves often do as they spur their disobedient bodies into motion. He moved towards the bed and lay down on it without bothering to take his shoes off before folding his hands and staring at the ceiling. It felt like he was practising for his coffin. Her hand reached for his, and he let it, refusing to acknowledge it and instead focusing on the steady rising and falling of his chest.

“Where did you go?” she asked in a polite tone. He wanted to scream, run and cry all at once. How could he answer that? How could he ever explain that he just had to? The word self-destructive was probably accurate, but he tended to avoid that word as it felt too confrontational. But here he was. Being confronted like a rat in a cage.

“I met someone else”, he lied, “she was very pretty”. A cigarette. That’s what he needed.

“Oh”, she replied. There was hurt in her voice for the first time. It felt like razor blades against his ears. “Did you ever love me?”

He turned towards her and silenced her with a kiss planted on her cheek. That was the easier option. A more convenient choice to answering her question. She pulled back to look at him. Silent. He clenched his jaw but held her gaze. His body ached too much for him to run. He wanted to lie here forever.

“Can we stay here until winter’s over?” she asked. Her eyes were those of a young girl. There was an odd alchemy of fear and that melancholic sadness that is only found in a cornered animal who knows they have nowhere left to run. It was a look of vulnerability that he recognised in himself. At that moment, he felt his papier-mache organs crumbling into pieces. The strings that held him together were coming undone. Time was finally catching up to him. He could feel a solitary wrinkle forming around his lips. He realised he was smiling. The wrinkle coursed like a river carving itself out around the smile that he had forgotten. He took her hand with his own and moved it towards his face, and rested it there.

“Look”, he said, “now I’m ugly as well”. He laughed. It scratched its way out of his throat and echoed around the room. He couldn’t help it. He laughed and gasped for breath the same way he had in the train station. She looked at him, terrified.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before”. This only made him laugh more, and as he laughed, he wrapped himself around her. He heard her sigh. This is what she wanted. Finally, after all those years, it felt as though she was needed. He didn’t know if he did it to make her happy or because he wanted to. But either way, it didn’t matter. He was here now. He sighed a deep, rasping breath, closing his eyes to bask in the feeling. It felt like sunlight on his skin. He swore in that moment that all those snowflakes would be melting away. He closed his eyes. Content. And she closed hers. Together they lay there.

They lay there until the snowflakes truly did melt and spring crept its way back in. As they lay there, their bodies turned to ash, and snowdrops sprouted through the springs of the bed and the husks of their chests. The roots of the flowers intertwined as though they were holding hands. Flowers were much simpler. They didn’t need to think or talk. They could sit in silence together, basking in the sunlight, just enjoying each other’s presence. Finally, the stray cat was gone.