Mon corps sait toujours quand ce n'est pas vous...The other night while I was sleeping, my cat found a loose piece of string lying around and tried to eat it. Somehow part of it got looped tight around her chin to the point that she couldn't get it loose, keeping the portion that she was trying to swallow dangling partially inside her throat.
One minute I was sleeping peacefully and the next it sounded like a barroom brawl had broken out as she stumbled around the room clawing at her own chin trying to dislodge the thing that was choking her. Clawing so hard that it broke the skin, bled on to her own paws, into her coat, and everywhere inbetween. Wet footprints on the white paper beside my computer's printer. Little red dots dripped onto the keyboard, strewn across the plastic windowed envelope for the light bill, and onto the sheets of my bed.
Once I figured out what was going on I tried to get a hold of her -- but by that point in the struggle she had reached a panic, and moved away in fear every time I advanced. It was dark and she had knocked all sorts of things off the shelves and desk, creating chaos in the room. Still trying desperately to claw the string from her chin, she darted under the far corner of the bed, just out of the reach of my fingertips...
I could see her there; thrashing around, clawing at her own jaw, unable to make the noise to cry out because of the thread blocking her air.
Now fully steeped in the urgency of it all I yanked the bedframe to the side, scaring the cat even more but at least giving me a clear chance at her. I picked her up, feeling the sting of swinging claws as they dug into the skin on my hands and wrists every second I fished at the loop around her jaw, trying to break it free or at the very least pull it away. The blood making my fingertips slip, adding to the strain of holding her still.
How I finally got it loose I don't even really know. But for what seemed an eternity I sat there with her huddled against my chest, trembling as she attempted to process all that had just taken place. Trembling like the hands of my child during the winds of his first winter. Shaking like the breath of the woman who used to love me after another intense dream had crossed the line from subconscious suggestion to the kind of terror that makes a person scream into the darkness and not know where they are.
I held on tight.I dressed the wounds and stayed with her until dawn. Watched her close for a day or so afterward. Double checked the floors and emptied all the trashcans. It's what you do. Reflex made instinct. Equal and opposite reaction. Everything in it's right place.
Refused to let go.
It's entirely possible that I'll never really know what she truly thinks of me. As we lay there side by side, washing rivers across our own stones, sharing the space we had together (even if we can only truly appreciate it sometime later when we were alone). But after all we'd been through - separately and together,
Just having her there,
Just having you close..was enough.
[Listening to: Rein Sanction, "I Took A Walk"]
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