DANA
Perhaps she thought it was her baby, or at least that’s what Dana theorized to herself as the cat trotted through the City Park walking trail with a dead bird in its mouth. Dana wasn’t stupid. She knew it was more likely the cat was only looking for something to eat, but the cat held the bird in its mouth the way it would a kitten. Teeth gently closed around the bird’s frail body; a carefulness learned only after becoming a mother.
It was the first time Dana had been out since giving birth. She felt like she kept seeing mothers everywhere. Babies everywhere. She wondered if her husband saw the same. Her husband, who, as soon as he saw her begin to push back in the delivery room, left after getting sick from “seeing his wife as anything less than beautiful.”
She supposed it was not the work of men to see women in compromising positions. Men were simply not strong enough for it. After all, her husband was not strong enough to stay with her in the hospital. He left that to Dana’s mother.
He always seemed to get sick when faced with responsibility.
Dana wondered where that same sickness was when he put the baby inside of her.
She supposed sickness was only possible in undeniable confrontation. Men seldom account for the future, anyway.
OWEN
Owen thought that the bird might have been the cat’s friend, and she killed it by accident.
This was Owen’s first walk alone in City Park. He had always gone on walks on this very trail with his girlfriend; he refused to come after she died. But now it’s been five months, and he figures it’s time to get over it. The true cause of her death was something not even he understood. She revealed to him that she didn’t plan on staying with him much longer, and Owen, who had been driving them home, swerved off of the road.
The only thing he remembers from that night is what he was thinking when he surrendered control of the car.
He had never really felt unsafe in a car. Except for the one time. That one time when he was a kid and his dad floored the gas pedal and let go of the steering wheel. Just as a joke. Owen didn’t like driving with him much after that.
He would ride his bike instead. He stopped thinking only when the car ran straight into a cypress tree. The same tree he had been standing in front of for the past seven minutes, thinking. He really did love her. More than anything. But since her death, he found himself feeling…empty.
He supposed he was still in shock.
ROSEMARY
Rosemary hated cats. This was all she could think about when she saw the cat slowly approach her, bird in mouth. She gave it a swift kick, and it hissed as it darted away. When Rosemary was little, she had a dog. Well, a puppy. A very small puppy. It was small enough to fit in the palms of her hands; the runt of the litter. She named him Pup, and even then, being as young as she was, she insisted on being solely responsible for him.
In the mornings, he’d nudge her awake before the sun had even come up, and she would climb out of bed to let him outside and give him his breakfast. In the afternoons, she would wash him off in the sink after he had gotten himself dirty. She didn’t fall asleep until he was asleep right next to her in her bed, curled up beneath her pink floral pattern blanket. She adored him.
One morning, for whatever reason, Rosemary did not wake up when Pup did. Someone else let him outside. As soon as she got up, she went to check on him. And there, in the low grass of her backyard, she watched as a cat bent down over Pup, eating away at him. She screamed at the cat, cursed at it, released whatever amount of anger an eight-year-old girl was capable of. But nothing could be done. The cat scurried away and all that was left, or wasn’t left, was Pup. Rosemary didn’t get another dog after that.
SAMSARA
Samsara did not want to be at City Park right now. His boyfriend, Alice, had thrown him out again for reasons most would suggest unreasonable (Alice was not a terribly good partner). Samsara was supposed to be watching the cat, but he had fallen asleep.
When he woke up, the cat was gone.
Alice told Samsara not to come back unless the cat was with him. Samsara could never remember the name of the cat because Alice, the terribly special person that he was, named the cat after some German town completely unfamiliar to Samsara. And so he wandered through the park looking for a cat he did not remember the name of. Given that this was the third time Alice had thrown him out in the last month, Samsara considered for the first time that maybe breaking up would be a good idea.
He figured he’d think more about that when he got back home.
Alice didn’t always have a cat. Before the cat, there was a rabbit. It had been a year since the rabbit, so Samsara couldn’t quite remember, but he was pretty sure it had been his. Alice hated it. It seemed that Alice hated anything Samsara loved that wasn’t him. He better find that cat.
Samsara continued through City Park when he saw a familiar pair of pointed brown ears. Just below the ears, caught in sharp yellowing teeth, was a dead bird. Samsara looked at the cat whose name he could not remember, and the cat stared back at him. The two stood staring like that for what felt like hours, though Samsara knew it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.
He decided to let Alice know he wouldn’t be coming back.
