So here's the redux of "Cats Say Miao".
Johnny, leaning forward in his seat, focused on the road ahead. He said, “You’re right, thank goodness it’s not a cross country meet, or a scholastic bowl meet, or anything like that.”
“But we’re gonna get there so late.” David took a look outside at the passing pines and car taillights on the four-lane divided highway. It was cloudy. David didn’t know if the moon was full, new, or anything in between. It didn’t matter to him, either.
Johnny turned the music up on the car radio.
“We’ll get there eventually,” Johnny said.
“Where’d we go wrong, anyways?”
“I think you just mixed up my handwritten 1’s and 7’s, so you said to get off at exit twenty-seven,” said Johnny.
David said, “Sorry about that, it’s really all my fault.”
“No, it’s fine. No worries. We’ve turned around the car already.”
“Seriously? I mean, we’ve missed out on half an hour. That doesn’t bug you?”
Johnny said, “Yeah, I wish we got there on time, but it doesn’t help anything to worry about it.”
“I still feel pretty bad about it,” insisted David.
“Don’t worry about it.”
The tires hummed while rolling on the concrete at sixty-five until Johnny saw the exit sign. The humming faded away as he turned off on exit twenty-one. Johnny asked “Left or right here?”
David looked at the sheet. “It says… to the right. Then the next turn is Elmwood Lane. It’s in about ten miles.”
“Sounds good,” Johnny sighed. The pine trees ended and corn and soybeans began. “Hey… I’ve got something kinda big to talk about. You know about four weeks ago, when I had that wisdom teeth operation?”
David smirked. “Yeah, you would not shut up about it and your medicine. I doubt anyone could forget that this soon.”
Johnny chuckled. “Well, because of those painkillers and some oddball reaction I had, I started hallucinating.”
David put his head in his hands and chuckled, but he said, “Sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing.”
“No, go right ahead. I can’t believe it myself sometimes. I start to think, ‘Was I crazy? Did I imagine it all?’ ” Johnny paused. “That’s not the right question; I was crazy and I did imagine it all.”
“What happened?” asked David.
Johnny took a breath and began, “It started the night after they gave me the painkillers. I had been trying to fall asleep while listening to music, and I do that a lot, but my iPod had run out of power and I was just lying there and thinking – it seems so long ago now. I was in that half-asleep stage where I knew where I was, but I didn’t have any logic; I’d link nonsense with nothing and ramble on and on. I remember thinking that Jimi Hendrix should meet up with John Mayer and write an album about Roman mythology.
“But I started thinking about art, and what that’s supposed to be, and then I saw what looked like a cat, but it was blue. I was a little curious about how it got into my room and why it was blue. I trudged out of bed, but the cat padded away. I had a half-formed thought that I was dreaming. It walked down the stairs, and I followed it outside the house. We hadn’t gone too far down the sidewalk when we came to a street I was sure didn’t exist before. The blue cat turned onto that street and sat on the porch of one of the houses, and I followed it. On that porch, in a white rocking chair, sat an old lady. She wasn’t the cranky, old cat lady type, she was more like the kind that would give you cookies and milk, and she had an aura of wisdom and artiness. I don’t know how I came to that conclusion. I think it was obvious enough that I didn’t need evidence – she just was wise and artistic.
“I asked her what she thought on my current topic – about art, and what that’s supposed to be. We talked for, say, about an hour. I enjoyed it a lot, honestly. It was like talking to a good friend who really knew me.”
David looked backwards as they passed a street. “Johnny, did you know you just blew past that stop sign?”
Johnny took a breath. “Shoot, shoot-shoot-shoot, I shouldn’t be explaining this while I’m driving. I can’t do both at the same time.”
“Do you want me to drive? I’ve got my license with me,” David offered.
“I think that might work,” Johnny said as he looked for a place to pull over and switch drivers. He continued talking, however.
“After I woke up that morning, I felt pretty sad that it was all a dream. But to my surprise, that blue cat was there – a bit fuzzy, I guess, like a melting idea, a bit streaky or blurry when it moved. It followed me to school, and I held doors open for it and stuff. I also saw the old lady on occasion throughout the day, with the blue cat. I talked to her and she talked to me.
“I was lost in my head then; I was wandering in my own thoughts. I felt small, like I wasn’t the size of my body, like I really was deeper inside and I only had influence on what I did, not full control. When she talked to me, though, it was like a separate world; it was as if I was in another partition of my mind. Everything else seemed to quiet when she spoke.”
Johnny drove into a parking lot and parked the car. They both got out, then switched sides.
David passed the directions to the party as he quipped, “At least you can read your own handwriting this time.”
Johnny laughed. “We aren’t too far from getting there. I wonder if they’d be worried about us.”
David rolled his eyes. “Come on, really? They’d miss us that much? Yeah, we’ll get there and I’ll get a hug from every single person who showed up because they all thought we died. I don’t even like hugs.”
Johnny started talking again. “I’d enjoy it if that happened. I’ve missed that wise old lady. I mean, it’s like I met someone I really got along with. I guess that makes sense, considering it probably was entirely a figment of my imagination. But it felt real, and I really missed her when she was gone. I still miss her. I talked to her so much. To have someone who knows you so well… she was my real companion for that short time, she was someone who I shared my darkest secrets with and laughed with, and then she was gone. She was there for three days. Three. Days. That was all.
Johnny continued, “Man, I feel like an idiot. I talked to someone who didn’t exist. That’s a perfect example definition of crazy. Go stick me in the loony bin right now, I’m sure it’s not too far from wherever I happen to be. And why do I go and tell this all to you, it just makes it all worse. What am I doing? What am I doing thinking I could have driven all the way here? I missed that stop sign. I could have hallucinated a deer, then swerved out of the way. Whatever it is, whatever’s happening to me, it’s not healthy.”
Johnny closed his eyes, rested his head over the top of the headrest, and tried to take deep breaths, but tears began to fall.
David turned onto Elmwood Lane. He asked Johnny, “Hey, what’s their address? What should I be looking for?”
Johnny only wiped his eyes and put his head in his hands. He started muttering.
David looked worriedly at Johnny and realized he should find out himself. He scanned the sheet of directions for the answer and then returned it to its place.
Johnny’s voice became audible. “…healthy, it’s not healthy, it’s not healthy. Oh, to hell with it all, take me away now. I like my little fantasy dreamworld person better than reality. I don’t care about my friends how I care about someone who never existed. It’s not healthy. It’s an full and total tragedy.”
Johnny interlocked his fingers around his neck and cried.
The cornstalks passed by in the headlights.
“You care about us.”
The car turned into the gravel driveway.
David looked at Johnny and repeated the statement for Johnny to hear. “I know for sure you care about us.”
David stepped out of the driver’s seat and shut the door with a thuwmp.
Johnny clicked the passenger door open, stepped out and took a deep breath of the early fall air. He caught sight of a shade or a smear of glowing blue not too far off – a reachable distance. He had an option, an option between reality and fantasy, a warted, genuine face or a lost, plastic perfection.
David watched Johnny stare off into the bushes for a time.
Johnny turned away, now resolute, and followed David into the house, where Johnny knew his real friends would be waiting.
