The Last House on Needless Street(8)

It goes on, the tiny sound like a chime or a high voice. The machines are not making the noise.

I go upstairs. I like going up stairs. It always feels like an improvement of some kind. I also like to sleep on the step that is exactly mid-flight. It makes me feel like I’m floating. The runner is black and I blend in well against it. Ted trips on me sometimes. He drinks too much.

The sound doesn’t seem to get any louder or quieter as I move through the rooms, which is weird. I skirt the attic door, giving it a wide berth. Bad place. I stand on my hind legs to pull down the handle of the bedroom door. It gives with that robust click and swings wide. (Love doors. Just adore them.) There are five or six rolls of duct tape on Ted’s bed. He buys the stuff by the yard. I don’t know what on earth he uses it all for. I lick the tape. It tastes sticky and strong. The eeeooooeee is still chiming softly in my ear. I row with impatience. Do I imagine this, or is the sound slightly metallic, hollow, like it’s coming from a pipe?

In the bathroom I leap up to test the taps. No sound comes from them except the internal echo of air. I give the metal a lick and sniff the scum that covers the edges of the basin. Ted is not a very clean ted. His bathroom does not look like the bathrooms on TV.

The bathroom cabinet door is open. The tubes sit in long brown rows on the shelves. I stroke them with the tip of my tail, and then give a little nudge. The tubes fall in a clatter, pills raining from their mouths. Pink, white, blue. He never closes them properly, because they’re safety caps and he can’t get them off when he’s drunk. The pills are all mixed up on the dirty tiles. A couple have landed in a puddle, left over from his morning shower. They are already bleeding pink into the water. I bat a green-and-white capsule across the floor.

EEEEeoooeeee. The high song. It’s a message, I know it, and it feels like it’s just for me. But there’s no more time to figure it out because it’s time for her.

I am bound to Ted by the cord, and he is in my care as the lord has decreed. But I do have a life outside him, you know? I have interests. Well, one. It’s time for her now and that is very exciting.

I race down the stairs and to the window, avoiding the pink bike, taking another route behind the couch, leaving paw prints in the dust. I can’t help being afraid that I’m late even though I know I’m not. But the circles of light are at exactly the right angle on the walls. I hop up on the small green macramé table. If I stand on my hind legs and stretch a little, I can just look out of the peephole that catches the street, through the little oak tree. The cord trails behind me in the air, a luminous silver.

The other peepholes are ted height and I can’t reach them. This is my only glimpse of the outside. It’s a small hole, the size of a quarter, maybe. I can’t see much; a twisted stretch of oak trunk, some bare winter branches, through them a couple of feet of sidewalk. As I watch, the grey sky gives and snow starts to fall gently in the silence. Gradually the sidewalk vanishes under white, each tree branch bears a narrow line of snow.

This is all I know, this little coin of world. Do I mind? Do I miss going outside? Not at all. It’s dangerous out there. This is enough for me, as long as I can see her.

I hope Ted doesn’t move the macramé table. It would be just the kind of thing he might do. Then I’d have to get really mad and I hate being mad.

If she doesn’t come I’ll wait. That’s what love is about, of course. Patience and endurance. The lord taught me that.

Her scent precedes her, falls through the air like honey dripping onto toast. She comes around the corner with her graceful stride. How can I describe her? She’s striped like a little dusty tiger. Her yellow eyes are the same colour as ripe gold apple skin, or pee. They’re beautiful, is what I mean. She is beautiful. She stops and stretches, this way and that, extends her long black claws. She blinks as snowflakes come to rest on her nose. She has something silver sticking out of her mouth, a tail, maybe. A small fish like a sardine or an anchovy. I have always wondered what real fish tastes like. I get nacho cheese and leftover chicken nuggets, or old chuck from the discount aisle at the 7-Eleven. And when I’m really hungry I have to ask Nighttime to hunt for me. (I abhor violence of any kind, but I didn’t make the world and when I must, I must.)

I hope your fish is delicious, I tell the tabby silently. I stroke the plywood with a paw. I love you. The wind builds to a moan, the air is thick with whirling snow and she is gone in a flash of black and gold. Show’s over. The lord giveth, and he taketh away.

Usually after I see her I like to just sit and think for a spell. But the little whine is back, louder now. I rub my ear with my paw until it’s glowing and sore. This makes no difference. Where the heck is it coming from? OOoooeeeeooooee it goes, on and on. How can I get anything done with that in my ear? It is like a little clock. Worse, because it almost feels like it’s inside me and will not stop. This idea makes me uneasy. What is the little clock chiming for? What hour is come? I need guidance.

I go to my Bible. Well, it is mine now. I think it belonged to Ted’s mother. But she went away and until she comes back, I don’t feel bad using it. The pages are thin and whispery, like dried flower petals. It has gold on the cover, which catches the corner of the eye like a secret. Ted keeps it on a high table in the living room. It’s wasted on him, honestly, he never opens it. The book is becoming somewhat battered, but after all, I must do my devotions.