{"id":138214,"date":"2022-12-25T23:18:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-25T23:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=138214"},"modified":"2023-11-04T15:06:22","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T15:06:22","slug":"a-strange-history-with-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/?p=138214","title":{"rendered":"A Strange History with Cats"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nOctober 2012<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe first cat was crushed, guts splashed across the driveway, mouth a frozen hiss. Its milky eyes seemed to track Ling as she hefted herself out of the car and waddled over.\n<\/p>\n

\nInauspicious.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nThat was the word that came to her. In Chinese, a word of raindrop suddenness, a reflex.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat is it, honey?\u201d Raymond said, rounding from the trunk and surveying the mess. \u201cOh man. You go on inside. I\u2019ll take care of it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nIn the kitchen, Ling prepared a glass of raspberry leaf tea. By the time it was steeped and aromatic, she heard Raymond entering through the garage, taking the back stairs up to the guest shower.\n<\/p>\n

\nLovely, discrete man. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nShe gazed out the kitchen window into the rolling, wooded yard of their home in Maryland. Deep autumn fire, a sparkling brook\u2014\n<\/p>\n

\nA kick.\n<\/p>\n

\nLing gasped with relief. Sophie had lain still ever since the cat incident.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe blew on her tea, sipped it, supporting her considerable weight against the counter. Sophie turned and kicked again. Ling held her belly, feeling her child\u2019s movements.\n<\/p>\n

\nI can\u2019t wait to meet you. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nSoon she heard the shower, felt a slight tremble from the pipes, and remembered that there had been another cat\u2014with the realization came a wave of panic, and Sophie grew still once more.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\nAt dinner, Raymond and Ling sat across from each other in the kitchen nook. Thai takeout glowed beneath the warm light of the Edison bulbs. She\u2019d been eating spicy food based on her mother\u2019s advice. Spice has an opening principle, <\/em> she\u2019d said. It will encourage the child to come out. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nLing extracted a sliver of bamboo with her chopsticks and, wrinkling her nose, examined it\u2014an idiosyncrasy that had developed over the course of her pregnancy.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe looked up at her thickset husband, engaged with a box of chicken gang gai. \u201cDo you remember our first date?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe managed to secure a morsel of chicken with his chopsticks. \u201cMmm. You mean the date that never was? Thought you\u2019d stood me up. I waited\u2014what?\u2014an hour and a half at the bar downing Coronas.\u201d He popped the chicken in his mouth. \u201cThen you finally remembered to call.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe bamboo looked, smelled clean. Her teeth snagged it. \u201cI never told you the full story of what happened.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo?\u201d He scanned the boxes for his next bite.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI shut the front door on a stray cat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cReally?\u201d He fished out a peapod.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt was slipping past me into the apartment. I didn\u2019t see it. Must have cracked its spine with the door. It shook me up, but I figured I should still go meet you. Xiaofei had already started up the bathtub, thinking I had gone out. If I hadn\u2019t had to go wash up after handling the dead cat, she probably \u2026 wouldn\u2019t have survived.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond chewed his food but said nothing. She hated when he did that, but the topic of Ling\u2019s fraternal twin tended to shut down conversation.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSo, in a weird way, the cat saved her life,<\/em>\u201d she continued.\n<\/p>\n

\nSilence.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat\u2019s your point?\u201d he asked at last.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWell, I didn\u2019t remember until today, \u2018til earlier when you went to go clean up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnd? You ran over a cat today, you accidentally killed another one\u2014what?\u2014four years ago.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWell, I \u2026.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou what?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSophie just kicked. Sorry. What was I saying?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHey, you want to move the rest of the meal into the living room, watch some Game of Thrones<\/em>? I\u2019d like to burn through a few episodes before bed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou go ahead. I really don\u2019t think it\u2019s good for Sophie, all that grime and cruelty.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond sighed. \u201cSeriously?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cGo, go, go. You watch it. I feel nauseated.\u201d She didn\u2019t, hadn\u2019t felt nauseated since the first trimester, but she at least wanted to evoke an empathetic response from her husband if she couldn\u2019t get him to follow her strange train of thought.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe plucked up the rest of the chicken and went to the living room. She propped up her feet on his empty chair and moved the box of curry duck closer. \u201cCan you make me some tea?\u201d she called using her pouty voice, brow knit as her mind clutched at the point she\u2019d been trying to make.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nIn the middle of the night, she gasped awake, the thread of conversation that had gotten away from her at dinnertime now strung out in the forefront of her mind. She shook Raymond.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHoney. Honey.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat? Is it Sophie? Is she coming?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe grabbed his arm to prevent him from rolling out of bed. \u201cNo. It was the same cat!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe cat. It was the same one from four years ago.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSay again?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe cat from today, it was the same one four years ago. All gray, with weird, milky eyes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHoney, you must have just described a gazillion other cats in the known universe.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnd there was another one.\u201d The Chinese in her spoke up.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat?\u201d Raymond was interpreting, slowly. \u201cA \u2026 third cat?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nA third one.\n<\/p>\n

\nYes. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nHow could she have forgotten? As she had spoken the sentence, the memory had spilled into her brain.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI can\u2019t believe it didn\u2019t occur to me earlier when I was telling you about my sister. It was back in Austin, during grad school. I lived in an apartment building then and was working on my comps exam late at night. It was due the next day. I couldn\u2019t settle down and focus, had several chapters left to write. Outside my window, down in the alley was a cat in heat. I tried everything to scare it away\u2014shouted, went down and jabbed a broom at it, even dumped a pot of cold water down into the alley\u2014but around four in the morning, at my wit\u2019s end I hurled my desk chair out of the window.\u201d Her voice grew quieter. \u201cIt was terrifying, that moment after I\u2019d released the chair, waiting to hear it crash against the ground. The cat screeched, then went quiet. Hours later, at dawn, I glimpsed it on my way to campus. I can still see it\u2014gray, milky-eyed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe couldn\u2019t see more than Raymond\u2019s alarm-clock reddened silhouette, but she could feel his eyes scrutinizing her. Suddenly a hand was caressing her puffy face.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLing, you had a nightmare. Go back to sleep. It\u2019s the pregnancy, babe. It\u2019s making your mind hyperactive. You know what they say in What to Expect<\/em>\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m very lucid about things right now. I don\u2019t know why everyone says pregnant women\u2019s minds are muddled, when mine feels razor-sharp. Isn\u2019t it possible pregnant women have rare glimpses into the state of things because we have a responsibility to think beyond ourselves? Like smells. If something smells off to me, no one would question the matter\u2014a pregnant woman\u2019s nose tells her what her child needs, what could endanger it\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou\u2019re ranting, Ling. I\u2019m not attacking you. I just woke up for Christ\u2019s sake, and you\u2019re talking about some ghost cat or something.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nLing sighed. \u201cI\u2019m not imagining this. It actually happened.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nYet her memory of that night eight years ago seemed imprecise. She recalled her neighbors had been having a party instead of a cat mewling down in the alley. Or was she combining two different nights in her mind? And the second cat, the one four years ago \u2026 had she really snapped its spine with the door? Hadn\u2019t she gone back into the house that evening because she\u2019d forgotten her phone? Wasn\u2019t that why she\u2019d been able to intercept her sister\u2019s suicide attempt? Or was that also another evening? Maybe the pregnancy was muddling her mind after all.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe have work in the morning. Please let\u2019s get back to sleep.\u201d Raymond pressed his face into the pillow, muffling his voice. \u201cTry to think about dogs or something.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nThe next day when Raymond said \u201cGood morning,\u201d she grunted, then sipped her coffee and ate her soft-boiled eggs in silence. She prepared his lunch and her own, and they pecked each other\u2019s lips and left in separate cars for separate offices at opposite ends of the city.\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter several hours of work, she went to the bathroom and cried. One of her co-workers discovered her there and hugged her for a few minutes, stroking her back and long hair. When asked what was wrong, Ling could only say, \u201cThere was a fourth.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nUndergrad. Her early twenties. She\u2019d been out at a bar with friends and was walking back to her dorm. The cat had followed her all the way from the bar street. She\u2014\n<\/p>\n

\nLing shook off the blossoming memory, got ahold of herself, returned to her desk, but after several minutes of fidgeting, decided she couldn\u2019t endure the rest of the day. She appealed to her manager, who commiserated, told her to go home.\n<\/p>\n

\nOn the way, the memory of the fourth cat sputtered back to life, and try as she did to smother it, on it flared. The cat had watched her enter the rental house. She prepared a dish of milk and spiked it with anti-freeze, then stuck it on the back stoop. From her bed she heard it groaning and rolling on the lawn for most of the night, and at dawn, mind splitting from hangover, she found the cat dead in a puddle of frothy, blue vomit.\n<\/p>\n

\nHazard lights clicking, rain pocking the windshield, Ling pulled over onto the narrow breakdown lane of the interstate, cars zooming past, her hands shaking.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\u201cHow was your day, babe?\u201d Raymond asked, his smile an attempt to warm that morning\u2019s chill.\n<\/p>\n

\nLing was on all fours on a yoga mat in the living room, finagling her body into a comfortable position. In the process, she had found a split end in her long hair, one of the divergent strands kinked, spiraling and zigzagging off into the unknown. In the background, Vivaldi portended the coming of a harrowing winter.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBabe?\u201d Raymond repeated.\n<\/p>\n

\nLing let the peculiar strand of hair join the rest of the lustrous curtain.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere was a fourth cat. Same as the other three,\u201d she said, gazing down the tunnel of black hair to where it pooled on the mat, spilling over onto the white oak floor. She only provided him with cursory details. In fact, upon arriving home Ling\u2019s confidence in the memory had begun to flag. She recalled a frat boy had accompanied her home that night\u2014Raymond didn\u2019t need to hear the details of either version of what might have happened.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe listened, then said, \u201cTechnically this would be the first cat. Yesterday\u2019s was the fourth cat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, yesterday\u2019s was the first.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond stretched out on the couch, shaking his head\u2014but his husband-wisdom guided him not to contradict her further. \u201cIn any case, there\u2019s a very simple explanation for all of this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou\u2019re overwhelmed with guilt about what happened yesterday.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe eased off the floor, favoring her back. Raymond sprang forward to help her to her feet.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou want a massage?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m okay.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe looked a little disappointed, but pulled her onto his lap as he sat back onto the couch. \u201cHave you ever killed an animal before?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve been trying to tell you. I\u2019ve killed four cats in my life.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI mean aside from these milky-eyed felines.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe thought about it for a moment. \u201cNo.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI knew it. You don\u2019t even kill spiders when they steal into the house. And FYI, when you ask me to remove them from the house, I just whack \u2018em and flush \u2018em down the toilet.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe looked genuinely betrayed. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t do that. It brings a bad energy into our house. Spiders are lucky.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey\u2019re vampires that suck other insects dry.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWell, no more killing spiders in our home.\u201d We need good karma for the baby, <\/em>she thought at him, knowing not to travel down mystical avenues with her husband.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou know, if you\u2019re so worried about this, why is it you\u2019re okay with eating meat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSophie needs the protein and the iron\u2014once I give birth, we\u2019re becoming vegan.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOkay. Fine.\u201d He ran a hand up her back, found her neck. \u201cYou look really beautiful.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe smiled. \u201cI don\u2019t even remember what we were talking about.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cExactly. This whole cat thing is absurd.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe thought for a moment and realized what Raymond had been implying several turns ago in the conversation. She turned a critical eye on him. \u201cI didn\u2019t fabricate these memories in order to aggrandize yesterday\u2019s event. What happened yesterday was awful, but it\u2019s part of a pattern.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThen why is it you\u2019re only remembering these events now?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe ran her fingers back through her hair, easily finding that kinky split-end, exploring the intriguing curves of it.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat happened yesterday must have created a link in a chain of memories because\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBecause what?\u201d Raymond prodded.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe words she had spoken last night hung on her lips, and when she glanced at her husband, she could see in his disappointed expression that he knew what she was thinking\u2014it was the same cat. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nShe woke at four the next morning, aroused by Sophie\u2019s shifting positions. As she lay there in the dark, humming a snatch of Bach, the memory of the fifth cat bubbled up into her consciousness\u2014a foul bubble of recollection escaping from a drowned memory.\n<\/p>\n

\nSophie grew still. Ling ceased humming, eyes wide, unbelieving.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd why the fifth? <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond was correct, annoying as it was that he had to point out such a thing to her\u2014the most recent one should be the fifth, and this freshly remembered cat should be regarded as the first, but such a numbering system felt backwards to her\u2014counterintuitively so. She felt upside-down and inverted. Imagined the cat crouching down, pouncing its way back through time, slashing into her life every four years or so on its way to \u2026 well, she wasn\u2019t sure where this whole cat thing was going.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe shuddered, wondering if her mother remembered this other one, this fifth cat.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nRaymond having smooched his way out the door, she drove across town to see Dr. Fielding, her gynecologist.\n<\/p>\n

\nAside from two thick black eyebrows nuzzling over the bridge of his nose, his entire head was clean-shaven. He dressed all in black, his hypermodern office offering a view of the distant D.C. sprawl.\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter her examination, she asked him about the relationship between pregnancy and psychosis.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe swiveled on his stool, testing an irritating squeak. \u201cMost commonly found postpartum, but also prepartum. Why do you ask?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m having odd memories\u2014things that both seemed to have happened to me but which also seem fantasized.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAbout abortions or miscarriages?\u201d He flipped back through her file. \u201cDon\u2019t recall you mentioning having any in your history.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, no. Nothing like that. They\u2019re about cats.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cCats? As in pet cats?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cRight. I keep remembering all these \u2026 misfortunate events surrounding cats that have occurred in my past.\u201d She scrunched her face in doubt, a slight shake of the head. \u201cHave you ever come across anything like this before?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe folded his hands together. \u201cNot exactly, but the experience of being pregnant can often lead to a future mother remembering events obliquely related to motherhood. I mentioned abortions and miscarriages because a number of patients have reported to me nightmares or flashbacks where they relived or invented these emotionally intense experiences about losing a child. As for cats, not sure how much water it holds, but obviously there\u2019s a pop psychology relationship between pet ownership and a desire for children. Could be you\u2019re associating these remembered cats with your own child, that you\u2019re reliving these experiences in order to prevent similar misfortunes from happening to your baby. A kind of mental checklist of how you should behave as a mother.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nDon\u2019t run over your child. Don\u2019t drop a chair on it from ten stories up. Don\u2019t feed it anti-freeze. <\/em>\u201cMaybe.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe flashed a set of expensive teeth. \u201cYou don\u2019t sound convinced.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, it makes sense, but it\u2019s just \u2026 the memories are horrendous.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf you\u2019re concerned about this, I can recommend a psychiatrist. We want everything to be perfect for the big day\u2014for Sophie\u2019s day.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cCan you give me their number? I\u2019d like to think about it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOf course.\u201d He looked up the info on his tablet and scribbled a name and number on a memo and handed it to her.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSo, you super-excited? You and Raymond are about to have a beautiful baby. Any day now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe tried to beam.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nRaymond texted he needed to work late that evening. She microwaved leftover Szechwan and blasted \u201cBolero\u201d for her baby, adjusting down the volume periodically throughout the extended crescendo\u2014she had a long list of great music to play for Sophie, even if the science behind the Mozart effect was bogus.\n<\/p>\n

\nNo matter, Sophie kicked her enthusiasm.\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter dinner, she decided it wasn\u2019t too early to call her family. She opened her computer and Skyped her parents. They\u2019d moved back to China with Xiaofei in the hopes that a busy family environment would be beneficial to the latter\u2019s mental health. Her sister had been pale and sickly all their lives, with round, gray eyes, beautiful and tall as their father\u2014but removed from everyone, in and out of the mental hospital, absent for long stretches of Ling\u2019s life.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe talked one-by-one to her father and mother and aunt and cousin and grandparents and even neighbors who\u2019d wandered in, attracted by the noise. (Xiaofei slept through it all as usual.) The hullabaloo lasted an hour and a half before she asked for her mother again.\n<\/p>\n

\nHer mother\u2019s face strained when she smiled at Ling. Hair streaked with gray, she appeared statelier and more severe than Ling. Touches about the d\u00e9cor\u2014the shade of the paneled tiles of the walls, the requisite red lunar calendar hanging over the wall\u2014heightened the effect of distance between mother and daughter.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMa, did we ever own a cat or have cats that came to our house?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe smile\u2019s tension snapped. \u201cWhy are you asking about cats?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s nothing. Raymond thinks my mind is being hyperactive, and my doctor thinks I\u2019m going through some kind of a pregnant woman bout of worrying, but I\u2019ve been having these strange memories involving cats.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHer mother turned and shouted at someone to give her some privacy. Her eyes finally turned back to the screen, indicating they were alone.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat did you remember?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI was sixteen. There was a stray cat that would hunt in the woods out back and leave mangled birds on our front doorstep. One day, when you and Baba were out\u201d\u2014Ling\u2019s voice choked, but she managed to get out the words through trembling lips\u2014\u201cI snared it with some rope, dragged it into the pond, and\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cStop. Stop.\u201d Her mother was wiping her eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSo it happened? I-I-I\u2014\u201c\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes, it happened. Yes and no.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nLing knocked over her mug of now-cold tea. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHer mother paused, lips pursed.\n<\/p>\n

\nLing reached across the computer for a Kleenex and started dabbing up the mess on the table and her flannel nightgown.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYour sister (Heaven help our miracle) remembers. She was in the house at the time and witnessed the killing from her room\u2014she hid in her magical fairy fortress and refused to come out for hours. But we also remember all of us going on a picnic that day. We were all out of town when the cat was killed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nIt was Ling\u2019s mother that told her about the sixth cat, the one that Ling killed when she was twelve years old. As she spoke, the memory unfurled in Ling\u2019s own mind\u2014an event re-occurring in the present. Indeed, her mother seemed to be remembering it anew with her\u2014strangling it with fishing line in the crawl space beneath their house.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cGray. Milky eyes,\u201d her mother confirmed.\n<\/p>\n

\nHer parents remembered both of the cat killings, or at least the repercussions of the events, the confused expression on Ling\u2019s face afterwards, Xiaofei\u2019s anxiety attacks\u2014but they also remembered alternate, co-occurring events. They and Ling had maintained double memories, but over time one strand had been buried, with the idyllic laid over the dirt as the true version. Though she had witnessed both murders, for some reason Xiaofei had been unable to construct a similar cognitive paradox, living only with the horrific memories.\n<\/p>\n

\nLing noticed her mother referred to the cats using a numbering system matching hers, although she had not been told about the first four cats. Apparently, she and Ling\u2019s father had always called them Cats 5 and 6, with a foreboding sense that there were other cats missing from the series, perhaps also recognizing the fact that these events were occurring backwards, that the origin had been some point in the future.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat should I do, Ma? I\u2019m freaking out about this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, Ling.\u201d She grew silent, brow creased. \u201cI will go to the temple and pray for you and talk with the monks there. Maybe they will have an answer for us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA monk?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI don\u2019t know where else we could turn.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOkay. Call me back afterwards. Doesn\u2019t matter what time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI will.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI love you, Ma. I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m so sorry. I \u2026 I don\u2019t know what to say.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI know. We love you too.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nShe made tea. Did yoga while listening to the Cure, an indulgent counterbalance after nine months of classical music. It was now quarter past ten, and her mind was reeling. The tea hadn\u2019t soothed her, the yoga hadn\u2019t brought about peace. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes strayed to the clock every few minutes. Raymond still had not returned home. Her mother had not called her back.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe texted him.\n<\/p>\n

\nNo response.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe called him.\n<\/p>\n

\nVoicemail.\n<\/p>\n

\nCould mean innumerable things\u2014he was driving, in a meeting, had fallen asleep at his desk.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnswer the phone, damn you!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe jabbed the End button, then sent her mother a message on WeChat, but no response was similarly ambiguous on that end\u2014Skype was about the extent of her mother\u2019s technological proficiency.\n<\/p>\n

\nThen the memory of the seventh cat hissed out of the dark at her: a butcher knife, her sister drenched in blood, the cat squirming and whining on the back porch.\n<\/p>\n

\nLing tore at her temples, on the verge of screaming.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s too much. Too much. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nHeadlights flashed across the living room windows. She rushed over, recognized Raymond\u2019s car snaking up the drive.\n<\/p>\n

\nMinding her belly, she made her way to the front door, ready to unleash a lengthy harangue\u2014but instead threw her arms around her husband.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat the hell?\u201d he murmured into her hair.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe withdrew, sniffing. \u201cYou\u2019ve been drinking.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe nodded sheepishly. \u201cCouple of drinks. Meeting went late. We ordered food, then the director suggested we hit the bar before calling it a night. Can\u2019t really turn down opportunities like that, can I?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, but we had a pact.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI know. I just\u201d\u2014his eyes flicked over her shoulder, and he cocked his head, listening to the plodding zombie dance of tom-tom drums\u2014\u201cwhat the hell are you listening to?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Cure.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe swept past her.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201c\u2018All Cats Are Gray,\u2019\u201d she added towards the empty doorway. Her eyes penetrated into the darkness, felt an army of milky eyes gazing back at her.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cStill thinking about cats, huh?\u201d She heard him tossing his computer bag on the easy chair.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe shut the door. Locked it. As she did so, she noticed faint, ancient scars on her arms. Brambles, she\u2019d told Raymond when he had asked her about them forever ago, but she noticed now the parallel marks\u2014deep scratches inflicted by a cat trying to defend itself while being stabbed to death.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe followed Raymond into the living room. Quietly: \u201cYes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnd do you think listening to this Goth nonsense is going to help?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI need to tell you something.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nAnother memory had just switched on.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLet me guess.\u201d He plopped down onto the couch, stretching out and clicking on the television. \u201cThere was another cat\u201d\u2014his eyes went Bela-Lugosi-wide, voice taking a stab at Vincent Price\u2014\u201cand it was the same cat<\/em>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou don\u2019t understand. I spoke to my mother this evening\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYeah? How\u2019s she doing?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cShe\u2019s fine, but she also remembers me having a \u2026 history with cats.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHe put down the remote. \u201cWere you the one that brought up the subject, or did she raise it independently?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI did.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAha\u201d\u2014he loosened his tie\u2014\u201cwell, depending upon the way you phrased the question, it\u2019s possible that you influenced her answer.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou didn\u2019t hear our conversation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWell, tell me about it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI can\u2019t. I\u2019m afraid you\u2019re going to take the baby and abandon me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI killed five other cats. Intentionally. I poisoned one, I drowned one, I g-garroted one, I butchered one, and I \u2026 cooked one.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou\u2019ve cooked cat? Is this some Chinese dish or something?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI cooked it alive! I was four years old.\u201d I was trying to stop it for good. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nHe stared at her.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWell? Say something! What\u2019s wrong with me? What\u2019s wrong with me?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe baby is driving you crazy. Can we turn this crap off?\u201d He stood, strode over to the stereo, and silenced the music. \u201cThat\u2019s better.\u201d He exhaled and guided his wife to the sofa. \u201cLing, listen, sit down.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe touch of his hand on her shoulder brought out the tears. She buried her face in her hands and began sobbing as he seated her.\n<\/p>\n

\nI\u2019m losing my mind. Sophie, I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m trying to be strong for you. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond knelt before her and stroked her hair. \u201cAre you telling me the truth about these cats?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes. I killed them. I remember. My parents remember. My sister remembers. In fact, I must have killed all of them on purpose, at least on some unconscious level. I think the other day I saw the cat was wedged under the tire, snoozing, but I chose to overlook the fact.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis is \u2026.\u201d He gestured \u201cmind-blowing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI know.\u201d She found his eyes, mouth trembling. \u201cPlease don\u2019t leave me. Don\u2019t take Sophie and abandon me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cChrist, Ling, I wouldn\u2019t do that. Even if it\u2019s true you\u2019re some kind of psychopathic animal mutilator.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe fell forward into his arms, and he guided her back up onto the couch, sitting down beside her, holding her.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou know how superstitious your mother is, and you know you and I don\u2019t see eye to eye on all the mystical bullshit\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHer body tensed. \u201cIt\u2019s not bullshit.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cRelax, relax. You know what I think? I think you\u2019re about to give birth, and you\u2019re projecting all your motherhood worries onto this cat business.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDr. Fielding said something similar.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSee what I mean? You\u2019re chasing this thing into weird places. You\u2019re my Ling, the sweetest person I\u2019ve ever known. You, cook a cat alive?\u201d He laughed dismissively.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt sounds crazy, but it feels so real, and how do you explain my mother and father remembering the same things I do?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMass hallucination? Mass-implanted memory? I don\u2019t know. I had a professor in grad school tell me about this time back in the 80s when he was living at college with two other dudes. One evening there was a power outage, and the three of them found this metallic mushroom sprouting out of the floorboards. It began unleashing spores all over the house and into their bodies and transforming all of them into these half-metal, half-fungal monsters. One of them went so far as to try and hack his own transforming hand off. Then the power cut back on, and with it the ceiling fans that dispersed the toxins filling up their house. From pesticides. They had all hallucinated the same thing, perhaps feeding each other\u2019s imaginations.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe sniffled, wiped her eyes. \u201cCan you turn on the ceiling fans?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond licked his lips. \u201cOkay. It\u2019s decided. I\u2019m playing nice husband tonight. Tea. Bath. Massage. Bed. How does that sound?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nLing felt warm, peaceful.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe cat thing was dispersed by their love making, but when she dozed, she dreamed she was attending college in the 80s, sharing a house with two other versions of herself\u2014child Ling and teenage Ling\u2014when a gray cat materialized in their house and began replicating, filling in every inch of the living space, planting cat spores in their bodies and brains.\n<\/p>\n

\nAn unfamiliar sound roused her.\n<\/p>\n

\nGreen flashing light.\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond\u2019s hands no longer cradled her belly, their Sophie.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe blinked, realizing it was her phone that had disturbed her. She squinted at it, shaming the blurriness into sense.\n<\/p>\n

\nMa. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nLing\u2019s throat constricted, heartbeat quickening.\n<\/p>\n

\nI shouldn\u2019t answer. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nShe remembered Raymond\u2019s story, the dream.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat\u2019s all it is. Hallucinations. Not cats. Not cats. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nShe picked up the phone.\n<\/p>\n

\nLet it go to voicemail. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nShe answered. \u201cMa?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLing, I talked to the monk.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOkay.\u201d Ling shot up in bed, a chill running down her spine. She wrapped a blanket around her, juggling the phone between hands. \u201cSo \u2026 what happened?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTook me so long. I\u2019m sorry. The first temple I went to I got into a fight with the monks there. They wouldn\u2019t listen to me, but an old woman overheard what I was saying, and she sent me somewhere else, another temple, in the countryside. A monk there knew what I was talking about.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cKnew what?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHe\u2019s come across such a demon before. He knows how to stop it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA demon? Ma \u2026 I don\u2019t think\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cListen to me. Time is short. It must have sniffed you out because of Sophie\u2014that\u2019s who it was after, but its timing was wrong, and so it hopped off the only way it could\u2014like a crab or a chess elephant\u2014backwards through time, to find you at a more vulnerable age and get its revenge. To steal your life force.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSo what do we do?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI can\u2019t aid you from here. You have to follow it yourself, stop it\u2014before it finds you \u2026.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nShe waddled down the stairs.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe light of the television shone through the living room doorway at the bottom, carving a skewed blue polygon out of the darkness of the front hall. Raymond must have fallen asleep while packing in more episodes of Game of Thrones. <\/em>Indeed, she found him sprawled out on the couch, snoring. He\u2019d been into the liquor cabinet as well.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe shook him. \u201cRaymond! Wake up!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHuh? What? Is it Sophie? Is Sophie coming?\u201d He responded with his rote half-roll onto his feet.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo. I need you to tell me where you buried the cat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOh, fuck\u2019s sake.\u201d He plopped back down, wringing his hair. \u201cI thought we were done with cats! Lemme sleep.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cJust tell me where you buried it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cGo back to bed, Ling.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTell me!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI didn\u2019t bury it. I dumped it in the trash.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nTrash pick-up wasn\u2019t till Thursday morning, so the mangled carcass was still out in their driveway, interred in black plastic. A stroke of luck. She wobbled out of the living room and into the kitchen. Flicked on the lights, eyes working over the counter, considering the knife block, various kitchen tools hanging over the sparkling tile. According to her mother, the only way to destroy this creature was to dispatch it in a unique way each time she encountered it\u2014nine times. Knives wouldn\u2019t work anymore since she had already stabbed one to death in the past\u2014or in the past future\u2014her mind became entangled when she tried to apply language to the situation, both English and Chinese.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLing, what are you doing?\u201d Raymond called from the other room, voice no longer sleep-trammeled.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI need to find the cat and kill it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nHuffing, she made her way to the utility room and found Raymond\u2019s toolbox. Tore it open and dumped the contents on the floor. The clamor summoned Raymond to the doorway.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat the hell?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI need your help! I need a weapon.\u201d She groaned as she kneeled and began rummaging through the tools at her disposal.\n<\/p>\n

\nBox cutter? Too similar to a knife.\n<\/p>\n

\nScrewdriver? Maybe. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nThen her eyes lit up.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe watched her pick up the electric drill. \u201cWhat are you doing with that?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe checked the battery\u2014fully charged. \u201cWhere are the\u2014what do you call them?\u2014the bits?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cFor Christ\u2019s sake, Ling!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhere are they?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe ice in her voice pierced into him. He went quiet, stooped down, and unrolled the felt scroll for her. She plucked out the largest of the bits and fumbled to fit it. He took it out of her hands, fit the bit\u2014clumsily, either from drowsiness or drunkenness\u2014then handed the drill back. She pulled the trigger; it whirred to life.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhat are you going to do with that, Ling?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWill you come with me?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhere are you going?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf I told you, you\u2019d say \u2018no,\u2019 so I can only ask you to have faith in me, to come with me and help me find the cat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond shook his head. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to go mutilate that cat carcass, are you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot exactly.\u201d She began to stand, when warm fluid gushed onto the tiled floor. Both of them stared at the spreading puddle for a moment.\n<\/p>\n

\nBlush peonies.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe touched it, sniffed her fingers, and the intensity in her brown eyes softened for a moment.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYour water broke,\u201d Raymond whispered reverentially.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe need to move fast.\u201d She grunted, trying to stand, recovering her resolve.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe helped her up. \u201cWe\u2019re getting you to the hospital. Put the drill down.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo, Raymond. We\u2019re not going to the hospital. If I don\u2019t find this cat, I\u2019m going to die\u2014Sophie too. Follow me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe tottered past him, through the connecting door to the foyer, cursing her massiveness.\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond snapped his fingers. \u201cThe hospital bag! Let me go get it. Maybe you should change clothes, Ling. I\u2019ll grab you a sweatshirt and those stretchy pants. Wait down here, will you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nShe watched her half-drunk husband clamber up the stairs. She\u2019d already secured the hospital bag in the trunk of her car that morning. Figured she had several minutes before he checked down there\u2014possibly enough time for her to find the cat.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe slipped into her running shoes, threw on a jacket over her flannel nightgown, stuffed the drill into the pocket, and opened the door.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nThe cold night air brought on the first labor pain, tightening knots that gradually entangled surrounding nerve structure. Her legs gave out and she leaned over the railing, a couple of steps above the paved walk that wound around to the driveway, waiting for it to end. After a minute or so, the pain retreated, and she continued down, puffing.\n<\/p>\n

\nMore amniotic fluid dripped down her inner thigh. Or was it blood? She could not bring herself to check. If she found blood\u2014which every baby book in the universe concurred was bad news for mama and little one alike\u2014she might not be able to go through with this plan of her mother\u2019s.\n<\/p>\n

\nNine revolutions, <\/em>she had said.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe trash bin stood guard by the garage door at the top of the driveway. She opened the lid and was struck by a gag-inducing warmth. The bag must have torn open beneath the weight and haphazard pokes of the intervening days\u2019 trash. She could hear things down in the bin\u2014buzzing, wriggling busy-ness.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe shut the lid and began to walk backwards, counterclockwise around the trash bin. The first step she took, she felt something pushing against her, as if she were a nock pressing up against some vast, invisible bowstring. Gripping the top of the bin to maintain her balance, she shuffled through four revolutions, until she felt that the force up against her was too powerful. She glanced up and found to her amazement that the garage door and path to the front of the house had receded several yards from her. She and the trash bin sat in the center of a depression, not down into the ground, but away<\/em> from everything else.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe eased down onto her hands and knees and now crawled backwards, managing several more revolutions\u2014only three more to go. She stopped, panting, and the second labor pain struck her.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe cried out, rolling onto her side; it made the pain more tolerable, though she couldn\u2019t fathom why, could only squeeze her eyes shut and wait.\n<\/p>\n

\nNot now, Sophie. Not now. Give me more time. Just a little more. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nShe opened her eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe pain had passed.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe house, the woods, they were now distant mirages in a stretched-out whorl of concrete, nocturnal sounds echoing down into the depression as if through an empty parking garage.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe continued to crawl. For the last revolution, she had to worm her way backwards, face and belly and legs scraping against the rough cold of the concrete, every inch its own special torture. She grunted, screamed, then heard Raymond\u2019s voice traversing the concrete wasteland: \u201cLing? What the fuck?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nCRUNCH! <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nAll of the tension snapped.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe blinked and pushed herself up to a kneeling position, glancing around. The trash bin had imploded into a warped funnel, its interior a hybrid of durable polyethylene and dripping refuse, stretching further back into otherness.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe scanned the horizon and found the frantically gesticulating pinpoint of Raymond.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cRaymond! I\u2019m okay! Sophie\u2019s okay! I have to go in deeper\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDeeper where?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTo find the cat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond had no words, but she knew him, knew he was thinking about folie \u00e0 deux<\/em> or some other convenient psychological escape hatch\u2014at the end of all this, he would still explain away events according to a gas leak or underground chemical deposit or solar flare or anything other than what Ling was actually experiencing.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe approached and peered inside the trash bin funnel. It narrowed to a small hole with frayed edges, as if something had scratched its way through to the other side. She climbed over the lip of the funnel and descended on hands and knees\u2014past disturbing odors and swaths of squirming insect life. She reached the hole and with grimy hands tugged at the sharp flaps of sheared plastic, ripping it wider for her own entry.\n<\/p>\n

\nBeyond twisted a tunnel like the interior of a strand of fusilli, full of a shimmering, musky gas. It passed not through the ground, but a series of frozen, warped tableaux. The first scene depicted the apartment where she\u2019d lived with her sister in Maryland\u2014right around the time she\u2019d met Raymond\u2014the aftermath of her snapping the cat\u2019s spine. The tunnel jinked away, towards the alley in Austin where the cat had been crushed by a falling chair. She crawled down, past Austin and into undergrad at UVA, where the gray cat had succumbed to a bowl of antifreeze. Ling screamed out as another surge of labor pain consumed her but managed this time to keep moving, inching around a widening bend.\n<\/p>\n

\nDown farther.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe labor pain dissipated, and she found herself in 1996, the pond in the backyard of her childhood home in Buffalo. The tunnel curled around her stick-thin sixteen-year-old self and through a rip in the frozen ripples of water.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe pulled out the drill, tested it and duck-walked into the darkness of 1992, the crawl space beneath her home.\n<\/p>\n

\nFarther back. Farther down.\n<\/p>\n

\n1988.\n<\/p>\n

\nBack porch in winter. Blood splattered over the rattan furniture and two girls\u2014Ling and Xiaofei, the former comforting the latter, shielding her from the sight of the dismembered cat\u2014or rather where a cat should have been\u2014Ling realized that in each scene she passed through, the creature was missing. Each time it had escaped backwards.\n<\/p>\n

\n1984.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe kitchen. The edges of linoleum were curled and discolored, smeared with blood where bits of mutton had been licked up, the mutton she had used to lure the cat into the oven. There she was at four years old, gazing at the oven from a safe distance. It was splintered open by what must have been massive claws, red heating coils splayed out like flagella.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe tunnel\u2019s exit.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nShe emerged into a dark room. There was just a sliver of light shining beneath a door\u2019s threshold, illuminating an inch-wide bar of carpet.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe waited for more of the scene to resolve, statue-still, heart hammering.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe air smelled rotten with that thick musk from the time tunnel. She heard something breathing in the darkness, deep inhalation.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe remembered her cell phone and removed one hand from the drill and dug into her coat pocket. Pulled it out, activated the light. The weak, narrow beam illuminated a halo of vertical white bars several yards away. She guided the light to the left, passing over more bars\u2014crib, <\/em>her pregnant-mother mind was quick to decide. The light found its edge and then passed beyond, illuminating familiar (though outdated) aspects of a nursery.\n<\/p>\n

\nThen her breath caught.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe collapsed onto the carpet. Felt as if every muscle were being compressed, every mole of oxygen being squeezed out of her\u2014no labor pain, unlike anything she\u2019d experienced before. She lay there, shuddering, hands clawing at her throat. The drill and phone had tumbled aside, but by some fortune the light of the phone angled back towards the crib.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe saw now what she had overlooked there.\n<\/p>\n

\nA form hulked over the bars of the crib. Gray, furry, bulbous. Behind it waved multiple tails webbed together like a bat wing. Several pairs of claws gripped the rails. Another pair clutched a limp infant to its mouth, sucking its face. The head, more insectile than feline, was a strategy of milky eyes, its sneering lips tracking towards fleshy conchs, mazy as inner ears. The eyes may have been watching her, but it was too focused on the baby to cease what it was doing. The child, Ling saw, swaddled in pink, was gray and shriveled, either dead or close enough to be discounted as such. With each breath of the cat, Ling felt the timing of those compresses and understood what was happening.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe baby was her thirty-two years ago. She was being de-souled, one breath at a time.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe reached out with arms as gray and wrinkled as the infant\u2019s and grabbed ahold of the drill. She attempted to inhale, to gather some final bit of strength, but her throat only managed a dry wheeze. Catching Ling\u2019s movement, the creature perked up, letting the child droop away from its strange mouth. The baby gasped, dim color flaring back to life in its skin, and a surge of power coursed through the adult Ling.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe scrambled to her feet, hoisted her weight forward, crashing into the side of the crib. The drill spun to life, boring into one of those conical organs. The demon screeched through discordant panpipes, a hemisphere of its head deflating, and baby Ling dropped into the crib, screaming, screaming, blood and life flowing back into her little body.\n<\/p>\n

\nLing yanked out the drill and pumped the trigger again, ramming the blurring bit into another one of the bizarre conch organs. Geysers of opalescent gas, sparkling in the dim ambience of the phone\u2019s light, erupted from the wounds, the musk overpowering.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe creature scuttled backwards, ripping the drill free with one of its claws and Ling grabbed the baby, intending to set it safely out of harm\u2019s way, but the creature shifted its weight, toppling the crib.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nMonths ago, Ling had typed up the perfect birthing plan, printed it, and tacked it to the wall over the desk in their home office, where she could pass by and peruse it at her will, making the odd amendment.\n<\/p>\n

\nBrian Eno\u2019s Thursday Afternoon<\/em> would be playing softly on repeat.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe lights would be dimmed with electronic candles spaced throughout the birthing room.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe pillows would be sprayed with lavender.\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond would be at her side, holding her hand, coaching her in the useless but sweet way of a good husband.\n<\/p>\n

\nDr. Fielding and a nurse would be guiding Sophie out into the world.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe would have an epidural.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe had not imagined that when labor began in earnest she would be back in Buffalo, 1980, cradling her infant self, a time demon crushing her belly\u2014but she could not hold Sophie off any longer. The child had dispatched her message that it was time to be born. Ling\u2019s months of reading and training took over. She breathed and panted, one hand pushing the sagging, grotesque head out of her line of sight, the other arm protecting infant Ling from the dying demon.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe pain had intensified. Wave after wave assaulted her body, each one crashing farther and farther afield, till the childbirth flared out of her fingertips.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe cat-thing continued to squeal through its atrocity show of a mouth, shriveling as the air grew more rotten with its sparkling blood gas, its claws sunk into Ling\u2019s legs and sides and belly.\n<\/p>\n

\nTime seemed to have grown still around the three of them\u2014the birthing mother, the crying child, and the monster.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhere are my parents? Can\u2019t they hear our screams? <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nIt was not until a couple of hours into the ordeal when Ling\u2019s roving mind understood that there was something else wrong with this scene, with this room, but she repressed the thought, would not let it mature. She was too locked into the machinery of birthing.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cCome on, Sophie,\u201d she chanted. \u201cI love you, baby. I love you. Come out. Come meet Mommy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nSeveral more hours passed. Infant Ling finally slept. The cat had shrunk down to a flat pelt, its claws relinquishing her flesh. Soon the carcass began bubbling and at last vanished, and the cloud of blood that had glamored the room started to thin out.\n<\/p>\n

\nA new voice entered the scene, and Ling held Sophie in her arms, wrapping her in one of the extra swaddling blankets in the overturned crib. (SIDS hazard, <\/em>her modern mind critiqued her parents of thirty years ago.) Then the placenta came\u2014and the cloud of blood had fully evaporated. She reached for her phone and cut off the light. Now it was just the three of them in the darkness, her cradling a crying Sophie, who woke baby Ling to join in for the chorus.\n<\/p>\n

\nThen she heard voices. The door swung open, and she gazed over at her mother and father, laughably \u201880s with frizzy hair and mustache, harried from sleep deprivation and the alarm call of crying infants. The pair were dumbstruck, mouths gaping.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe was about to speak, to attempt some explanation, when two hands emerged from the floor, wedged underneath her armpits and began to pull. She tried to resist, but felt that vast bowstring pressing against her. The babies were ripped from her arms and everything washed away, as if she had clicked through to the next image of a three-dimensional slideshow.\n<\/p>\n

\nRaymond lifted her out of the trash and into the October night. Back into 2012.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat was when the latent thought sprang forth\u2014Xiaofei had been missing from the nursery.\n<\/p>\n

\nNovember 2013<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\nA pale, skinny Ling emerged from Bridgewater Mental Institution, hair entirely silver, cropped short, wearing a pair of huge, square sunglasses she\u2019d bought at CVS during one of the weekend fieldtrips into town. She no longer wore a wedding band or engagement ring. To his credit, Raymond had stood by her for eight months before the divorce.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt was eight months after her institutionalization that Ling decided she would lie. She lied that the antipsychotics had finally begun to kick in. There\u2019d never been any cat demon. She suspected it had been a case of fetal abduction, an obscure crime she had come across during her months of reading at the hospital. She had left the house the night labor began, intending to wait for Raymond in the car. Two of the thieves seized her and began to extract the fetus. A third waited for Raymond to emerge from the house, then chloroformed him. When Raymond came to, he found his wife, minus child, stuffed into the trash bin. During one of his visits in the hospital cafeteria, Ling presented him with this alternative possibility of the events of that night.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe nodded, and when she found his eyes, she understood that their maimed marriage was dead at last.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs it happened, one of the demon\u2019s claws had embedded itself in her belly around the location where a forced Caesarean section might have been performed, lending further credibility to her story, even if the punctures were too narrow for a fetus to pass through. Her psychiatrists and therapists and Dr. Fielding were as willing to overlook this discrepancy as Raymond was.\n<\/p>\n

\nWeeks after the conversation in the cafeteria, the papers arrived. Raymond never again contacted his ex-wife.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere were times, especially towards the approach of her discharge date, when she tossed and turned on the lumpy mattress in her locked room, listening to the sounds of the hospital around her\u2014times when she was struck with guilt. Raymond deserved the truth.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe taxi waited for her at the end of the long drive over the meticulously landscaped hospital grounds. The fires of autumn had been extinguished. Only a scattering of gray leaves clung to low limbs.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWashington Dulles, please.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nTomorrow, she would fly to Beijing to be reunited with her family. A bittersweet homecoming. She\u2019d waited so long to see her parents. Her sister.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe laughed aloud, and the driver scrutinized her through the rearview mirror.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSomething funny?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNot really.\u201d Ling\u2019s voice cracked. Hidden by the sunglasses, tears brimmed out of her eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\nNothing funny about it at all. Raymond should be accompanying her for the reunion. After all, Xiaofei was his daughter too.\n<\/p>\n

Tim Boiteau lives in Michigan with his wife and son. He is a Writers of the Future winner and author of the dark fantasy novel “The Drummer Girl.” His short fiction has appeared in Deep Magic, LampLight, Dream of Shadows, and previously at The Colored Lens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 2012 The first cat was crushed, guts splashed across the driveway, mouth a frozen hiss. Its milky eyes seemed to track Ling as she hefted herself out of the car and waddled over. Inauspicious. That was the word that came to her. In Chinese, a word of raindrop suddenness, a reflex. \u201cWhat is it, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105617,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20085],"tags":[20086],"class_list":["post-138214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-39-spring-2021","tag-the-colored-lens-39-spring-2021","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/105617"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138215,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138214\/revisions\/138215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}