BY MARK THOMAS
Copyright is held by the author.
I WAS lying on the couch half asleep when I heard my cat meow. I reached down to scratch a pair of black and white ears, but my fingers just met emptiness.
Then I remembered.
I’d euthanized the animal a couple of weeks ago.
I licked my lips and considered the situation. It was unlikely that a ghost-cat was haunting my apartment, the plaintive noise was just an auditory hallucination, a spasm of guilt for killing something I loved. Sure, the animal was terminally ill, and the deed had to be done, but he clearly didn’t understand what was happening and his wet eyes reflected my betrayal as I zipped him into a pet carrier for his final ride.
I probably could have nursed him along for a few more days, letting him lick water droplets from my fingertips and smoothing the fur over his cat-skeleton as he slept with me at night.
But I wasn’t strong enough.
The vet understood; killing a pet is often harder than a pressing a pillow over the face of a dying human relative. The vet assured me that my grief would mature over time, and eventually become a part of who I was, something I would cease to question, like the existence of my own arms.
That was an odd way to put it, but I think I understood what she meant. At any rate, I made it home with the empty cat carrier on the seat beside me, without feeling the urge to steer into oncoming traffic. I didn’t request that the cat’s ashes be raked into a decorative urn, or a dying pawprint be preserved in dental alginate; mementos would just make the evolution of sorrow more complex.
Meow
I heard the sound again but this time when I impulsively reached towards it, my left arm fell out of its shirt sleeve and thumped onto the floor.
Time turned to jelly as I waited for my brain to register the catastrophic injury. The absence of pain was strangely terrifying because I knew that as soon as shock dissipated, I would be writhing.
The pain must be in the mail, I thought; electrical signals enroute to the appropriate cortical fold, and when they arrived . . .
I waited some more, but nothing happened.
Eventually, I swung my feet to the floor and sat up. My ex-arm, sheathed in pale skin overlaid with a network of veins and dark hairs, lay quietly on the laminate, hand towards me. The fingers were slightly curled, the metacarpals taut, the knuckles covered with tiny swirling wrinkles.
I didn’t dare touch my armpit, explore the depth of that newly created cavity. I was even scared to examine the ragged point of disarticulation on the alien arm lying on the floor. I wanted to delay facing that excruciating reality as long as possible.
I waited and waited, but the wave of agony I expected didn’t come.
So, I risked a glance at the glenohumeral end of the dead-wood simulacrum that was once my arm.
The ball end of the humerus was visible within a puckered mass of tissue but there were no leaky arterial scraps, no messy pink muscle-fibres, no slimy viscera, no spatters of blood.
I gently poked the arm with my toe, half-expecting the limb to scurry away like a giant insect, but it just wobbled, then settled back into its resting position on fingertips, wrist and elbow. I stood up, feeling only slightly unbalanced. I wasn’t faint or weak, like you’d expect from such a massive injury.
Part of my brain wanted to pack the limb in ice and drive to the hospital, then beg for reattachment surgery. But another part of my brain realized that I was still asleep and experiencing a vivid dream or perhaps trapped within a psychotic delusion while wide awake. Regardless, limbs aren’t like acorns or pears, they can’t harmlessly drop on the ground at the base of a tree, they are knitted in place by thousands of sensitive fibres.
Clearly, I hadn’t suffered a conventional injury, so I couldn’t depend on a conventional remedy.
I needed to work this out.
Perhaps playing along with the illusion would rob it of its power, the dissimulation might get bored with me, and retreat from my reality. So, I decided to take my diminished body for a walk.
I went to the kitchenette, intending to fill a metal dish with water, like always prior to leaving the apartment, but caught myself in time. There was no thirsty cat, alive or dead, staring up at me, sphinxlike, from the faux-slate tiles.
I was utterly alone, and tiny beads of sweat formed on my forehead.
Shoes were a challenge. It was impossible to tie them with only one set of fingers, even without a black and white tabby playing with the aglets. Luckily, my wingtips fit so snugly that laces weren’t really necessary, I could let them trail on the floor. Through force-of-habit, I twisted my body sideways to squeeze out the apartment door, making the opening as small as possible, so cat-sized phantoms and severed arms couldn’t escape behind me.
Meow. The sound was soft behind my apartment door.
My left sleeve swung wildly as I walked to the elevator, the movement was much more violent than it had ever been when the material was full of arm. I pushed the “down” button and stared at my haggard reflection in the stainless-steel doors. I reached out with my remaining hand to touch that metallic sadness, but the doors suddenly opened, and I almost poked my upstairs neighbor, Mrs. Braid, on the cheek instead.
She smiled sadly and stepped backwards to make room.
Mrs. Braid was usually a very outgoing person, but today she seemed distracted. I watched as she smoothed a tendril of silver hair behind her ear. Then she scratched at the reddish lobe.
Her ear fell onto the elevator floor.
There was no sound. After all, an ear is a pretty small appendage. It plopped onto the steel like a baby bird falling out of its nest. Mrs. Braid didn’t seem to notice the missing ear any more than she noticed my missing arm. Her fingers continued to massage the whorled cranial opening.
Elevator doors pulled apart at the lobby and we got out. Mrs. Braid turned left towards the rental office, and I walked straight ahead through the revolving front doors. The dream or delusion, whatever it was, didn’t dissipate; it held firm. I looked down and my shirt cuff puckered like the mouth of a monstrous fish.
Outside, on the street, I watched our neighbour Mr. Mesmer mechanically lower his barbershop awning, like he did every morning. He almost danced with the effort, twirling the long, old-fashioned crank rod with its off-set handle. The awning was just about in place when Mr. Mesmer’s lower left leg dropped within his trousers.
His well-polished shoe lay on its instep, and an unnatural expanse of sock was visible below the pant cuff. Obviously, the calf had fallen from its knee attachment but was hung up in a twist of trouser material.
When he finished with the awning, Mr. Mesmer lurched into his barbershop, using the crank as a cane, and dragging the useless limb behind him.
Carlyle Street was busy, as usual, and I suddenly noticed that the sidewalk was littered with fingers, noses and teeth, clumps of hair and shallow discs of bone. Crowds shuffled through the rifts of human detritus, occasionally smiling at each other with shiny gums or waving pink stumps.
Something brushed against my empty sleeve, and Mrs. Braid pushed past me to join the sidewalk throng, a hand cupped over the unnatural opening in her skull. She glanced back at me and pursed her lips to make a soft catlike noise.
And I still couldn’t cry.
***
Mark Thomas is a writer and artist living in St. Catharines, Ontario. His latest book is Next to Ewe, published by Between the lines. Check out his work at https://flamingdogshit.com
