One foggy September morning a couple years ago, I was given a writing prompt in class. It’s ironic— I don’t remember what the prompt was anymore; just that I ended up writing about a girl watching her beloved cat be lowered into a backyard grave. The cat was never particularly sweet or loving, lashing out at her when she tried to pet it, but she grieved nonetheless. I realize now what I didn’t then: that, really, I was writing about my own cat, Ava. I don’t even know why I was thinking about her that morning. For all I knew, she was laying on my sister’s bed hissing at anyone or anything that dared come near her.
When I got home that afternoon, she was dead.
My sister had found her curled up under her desk like she was sleeping. She was an old cat— twenty-two in human years— so we weren’t surprised, but the information still rocked me. Despite losing loved ones before, it still spawned the realization that people and things can just be gone without a warning, without a reason… A constant in my life, something I could always count on to be true, could disappear. I’ve never been very good at dealing with change, so this was devastating. In the end, I couldn’t even watch my dad bury her in the backyard.
Ava was a stubborn cat. That’s the main thing I remember. We all used to joke that my dad was the only one she liked, and there was definitely some truth to it: when she lived in my parents’ room, she’d only sleep next to him. When my mom went to bed with buns in her hair, Ava would bat at them. She never really liked me, either, despite my best efforts. I would read to her, give her treats, and pet her, but she still hissed sometimes when I came near her. I guess I must have been too loud. (She never actually bit me, though, which is more than I can say for other animals we had— although that’s another story.)
Her stubbornness is probably what kept her alive. When my parents adopted her, one of the people at the center told them they’d found her during the fires back in ‘03. She’d been an outdoor cat, they guessed, which might have been why she survived. They adopted her shortly before I was born, so I grew up with her.
I assume Ava must have been fine with being an indoor cat, because I’m sure if she wanted to be outside we wouldn’t have been able to contain her. But as it was, she was content staying in one room of the apartment we lived in, and then my grandmother’s house when we moved there. She got along well with my grandmother’s two dogs and our one— at least, she tolerated them. Which is better than the alternative. She still preferred my dad over anyone else in the house, though (including my sister, whose room she lived in for the last few years of her life).
When Ava joined the many animals buried in the yard (three dogs leads to a lot of dead rabbits and birds), I needed to get out of the house. My mom, about to depart for a weekly meeting with friends, invited me to come along. She warned me it would be boring, but my need to get away overrode my sense of boredom, so I joined her anyway.
Once we got to the house the meeting was at, however, something changed. The meeting didn’t allow children, so my mom set me up in the living room. It was warm— unseasonably so— but despite the temperature I felt cold. Or… not cold. I can’t quite describe the feeling I was experiencing. It was just empty, like a place that’s usually filled with people being desolate. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. The room I was in didn’t help matters: it was dark and empty except for a TV I was too nervous to turn on and a child’s toy set. Normally, I would have texted one of my friends, but my phone was dead. The sound of voices filtered in from outside— my mother and her friends– but, being alone, they felt miles and miles away.
My mind began to wander. I try to avoid being alone with my thoughts whenever possible; it can only take a few moments for me to spiral. After a time, in which I tried to read the book I had brought with me but couldn’t get into it, I remembered that story I wrote in class, how the girl was so stunned by grief that she didn’t know what to do. There were just too many details for it to be a coincidence, right?
I came to the conclusion that I had somehow caused Ava’s death. That the story I’d written was an omen of some kind; that it was my fault. Predictably, this thought only made me more upset as I blamed myself for the way everyone in my family was feeling.
Brains, my brain specifically, are very self-destructive. My mom once told me that ‘your brain wants to kill you, but it doesn’t know it needs you for transportation,’ and I think I agree. My mind likes to settle on one thing and keep hold of it like a stubborn dog. It doesn’t matter how bizarre or unlikely the thought is.
I wouldn’t exactly call myself a superstitious person, but I do believe in them to a certain extent. I guess that goes along with having a pagan mother. In any case, my mind latched on to the idea that the story I’d written had been a premonition of some sort. What could that mean? Were other things I’d written about also going to come true? (That particular thought scared me the most; my writing tends to lean towards the macabre.)
I never brought myself to finish that story. Maybe I should.