Hide and seek

Det här är min engelska novell som egentligen kom till av en ren slump. En stor inspirations källa till denna novell har varit Makoto Shinkais ”She and her cat”. Det är en fem minuter lång anime som handlar om relationen mellan en ung kvinna och hennes katt, sett ur kattens perspektiv. Mycket vacker och poetisk.

Of Dreams 

It was a raining that morning. It was the last period of fall and it had been pouring down for what for some people felt like an eternity. Although it had only been going on for a couple of hours, the air was already cold and damp and the streets were filling up with water.   
   Many may have remembered that night because of the rain, only to forget it sooner or later. But it isn’t like that for me. I remember that night, not because of the rain, nor because of the cold. I remember that day because, that was the day she left me. That was the day … she died. 

She had been a fragile person, not very much like you and me. She was often lying in bed sick and it was then that I used to keep her company. During those times, I sat by her bed looking after her, making sure nothing happened to her. I rarely left her side, because she was always feeling lonely. She often spoke to me and sometimes when she was talking, tears would come trickling from her eyes, follow her cheeks and then fall from her from the tip of her chin. Because of that, the top of her sheet was never quite dry.  It was evening when she passed away. She had been dying for a couple few weeks then, slowly passing away, leaving this world. The doctors said she had pneumonia.  

At the beginning of last hour she lived, she was sleeping. Then she had suddenly woken up and sat up in her bed, without a noise, her eyes full of fear. She quickly swept with her eyes across the room, as if she was seeking something. She slowly began realising that there was nothing there, that it had all been a dream. The fear that a moment ago was in her eyes was now disappearing, her eyes now instead being filled with tears.   
   I think she there understood what was going to happen. As she laid there, tears running, she suddenly opened her mouth, and then closed it, as if she wanted to speak, but didn’t have the strength or stamina to do it. A few moments later however, her voice filled the room. It was weary and thin, as if it hadn’t been used in a very long time.   
   “There once was a conjurer who lived in a house that laid in the most desolate part of the world” she began. I recognised this. It was the beginning of a story that she had been told when she was little girl. She had told it too me many times during her long periods of sickness. But this was different. She did not tell me this story. She was telling herself this story, because it gave her peace.  
    “Although the house looked like it was rather slovenly constructed from the outside” she continued, “on the inside, it was sumptuously decorated. It was built in a forest clearing and around it grew several large oaks. The trees stretched high up into the sky and must have been doing so for hundreds of years.    
   The conjurer was one of the prefects at the guild of magicians. He went there every morning by using his magic. When he wanted to go there, he simply called out the magical words, swung his wand and he was gone.  
   Although he was a bit paunchy, the conjurer was a humble and prudent man. He never gloated, told anyone off or rebuked them and he always planned his life with utter most care, he never left anything to coincidence.      
   He also happened to be the owner of magical tortoise, which he cherished above all his other possessions. The tortoise was able to do the most extraordinary things and the conjurer would often make use its magic.  
   But one day, the tortoise suddenly fell ill. The tortoise had always been clean and healthy, but now its shell was growing more and more squalid. The conjurer immediately began treating the turtle with a potion he had stored in a churn in a small cupboard in his house. He continued the treatment for a couple of days, but after five days, the tortoise’s condition was still the same. This bewildered him. Why didn’t the potion work? It usually helped against anything, but now it had done nothing.  
   He adored his tortoise so much, he felt compelled to help it. So he set out to this on the onerous to find a cure for his beloved animal. He travelled the world for days, using his excellent arithmetic to count the hours, the minutes and even the seconds.   
   After travelling for about two weeks, the long travels had taken most of his strength and he was now weak and sick. It was then that he found a spring in the middle of a dense forest, with water so clear, you could see every little nook of the lake bottom underneath. He was very thirsty, so rushed against the spring to drink from it. When he reached the water, he cupped his hands and drank from the pool of water. The water was cool and insipid. But it was then that something quite conspicuous happened. He immediately felt his strength return. His sickness and weakness had disappeared and were nowhere to be found. The conjurer was absolutely flabbergasted.   
   “How?” he asked himself. “What kind of magic is this?” He then remembered the reason he set out on this quest. He had to get back to his dear tortoise! He quickly collected some of the water into a bottle he had in his bag and then set off home, determined to return to this place once his turtle was healthy again.   He travelled for another whole week before he was home again. When he rushed into his house, he found his tortoise, squalid and swollen. It looked like it had fermented in the time that had passed.  
   The sight was really quite ludicrous, but as it was the conjurer’s tortoise, he found nothing about it funny. He uncorked the bottle with spring water and made sure the tortoise drank every single drop. The result made itself visible in seconds, as the tortoise rather rapidly shrunk back into its normal size, as soon as the water had reached its bowel.  
   The conjurer was really excited about the fact that his dear tortoise was at last back to normal. But one thing that excited him even more was when he thought about the spring. The spring’s magic was a miracle and he had decided to move to the spring to study its magic. So the very next day, he set off again, now having almost every single one of his possessions with him.  
   He searched for the springs for months and years, but never found it again, because the spring only showed itself when someone really needed it. But the conjurer never realised this, so he’s probably still out there, looking for the spring that will heal and cure.”  

As she finished her story, you could see that she was in pain. Every sentence, every word and every vowel had been a great effort to her. A moment ago, her voice had filled the room, but now the only sound you could hear was her slow, deep breathing. I sat, watching her chest go up and down as she in-and exhaled. For a few moments, the newfound peacefulness in the room got to me and I was caught thinking.    
   Then, all of a sudden, I realised, the room was now silent. There was no sound at all, I couldn’t even hear her breathing and as I once again looked her way, she was lying perfectly still. As I now got up and began to slowly walk towards her, I was filled with fear. When I reached her side, I whispered in her ear. I told her to wake up, to return to me. But she did not listen. I tried raising my voice, calling her name, but nothing happened. I started begging her that she would wake up, but all in vain. She was lying there still, not answering. During all this time, the fear in my mind had been growing more and more. My affection for her was so great that I at first didn’t want to accept what my eyes showed me or what my ears heard. I cursed my eyes and ears, for they told me about something that I didn’t want to happen. What I had feared for so long had now happened right in front of me. She had passed away, disappeared from this world, and left me all alone.  
   I had always been happy for what I had, what I was. But that one time, I wished that I was a human, so that I would be able to show my sorrow to the world. That one time, I wished I would be able to cry, like she used to do   I got up and laid myself on her belly. She had been my friend. I had been her cat.   She had at last found serenity. 

The day of her funeral, the air was filled with the sweet and heavy smell of incense. Outside, it was snowing, a thick white coat laying the world to rest.