\nThe pedalcar whirrs to a stop at the northern side of the superblock. To the south children scream and giggle as they run about the streets, sheltered from the rush of traffic by a line of orange trees, and, beyond those, cement anti-vehicle barricades. On the one side the road is tarmac grey, on the other it\u2019s a kaleidoscope of colours, painted over decades by artists, local families, bored teenagers, anyone craving to leave their mark on this tiny piece of Barcelona.\n<\/p>\n
\nWe can only park for twenty minutes, but I do not rush Zo\u00e8. I take my time helping her out of the car, her every step taken as though upon fresh ice. She\u2019s so small she looks anywhere from six to nine years old, and with her little white parasol and matching white vestit<\/em>, it\u2019s as though she\u2019s arrived from another era. When she sees the other children playing on the street she isn\u2019t jealous \u2013 in fact her cataract-clouded eyes shimmer with joy.\n<\/p>\n \nShe loves the superblocks, yet she will not be distracted. We are on a mission.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cUncle \u00c0ngel\u2026\u201d She tugs at my sleeve as we pass through the trees and the barricades.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s just down here, gateta.<\/em> Don\u2019t worry.\u201d Though I have never seen little Zo\u00e8 worry, not in all my time caring for her. She nods, resolute, and looks so like my sister it breaks my heart.\n<\/p>\n \nThe old woman is waiting for us in the doorway of her apartment building. In spite of her age, she\u2019s tall and broad, originally from Sweden perhaps, or Denmark. She stares at the bright red sunrash on Zo\u00e8\u2019s face, which is rude.\n<\/p>\n \nZo\u00e8 pretends she doesn\u2019t notice, just as S\u00edlvia did, and I want to tell her that it\u2019s all right to cry and scream and shout at the world, but perhaps that\u2019s a luxury for healthy people. For those with Lal\u2019s Syndrome, simply growing older is poison; it makes their bodies unravel, their hearts bleed. It\u2019s a miracle that S\u00edlvia even made it to twenty-eight, let alone had a daughter with the same elfin face, that same shit happens<\/em> spirit.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHola,<\/em>\u201d Zo\u00e8 greets, giving the woman more courtesy than she deserves. \u201cI understand you contacted my uncle? About an everkitten?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe woman is vague, motioning further down the street, her gaze flitting between Zo\u00e8\u2019s outsize nose, her prominent ears, her rashy hands. But Zo\u00e8 is calm.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou have a good day,\u201d she concludes.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou don\u2019t have to be polite to people like that,\u201d I say, once we\u2019re half out of earshot.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYes I do. Otherwise she wouldn\u2019t tell us anything.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI want to protect her, like I tried to protect S\u00edlvia, but just like her mother, Zo\u00e8 knows that\u2019s not possible. We weave among the foot traffic; she avoids the other children, yet calls by every adult we see and asks, \u201cHave you seen an everkitten?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSome stare, some avoid her gaze, and some few respond with the same respect she shows to them. None know of any everkittens.\n<\/p>\n \nMost people don\u2019t want to think about everkittens. There aren\u2019t supposed to be any, not here. They\u2019re banned across the whole Uni\u00f3 Europea<\/em>, but where there\u2019s demand there\u2019s supply, so everkittens are smuggled in from abroad; whole trailers of cats whose ageing has been suspended, who, thanks to comprehensive cell therapy, will stay as babies forever. Children want them, parents order them, but after a month or two of their home being ruined by a helpless cat \u2013 which can\u2019t even be toilet trained \u2013 they\u2019re just abandoned.\n<\/p>\n \nWe rescue as many as we can, but, being so helpless and small, if we don\u2019t find them quickly, we\u2019ll be too late. In fact, most of the time we\u2019re too late, but Zo\u00e8 insists we keep going. The whole everkitten shelter was her idea.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIf we don\u2019t make it in time…\u201d I begin.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIf we don\u2019t make it in time, then we don\u2019t make it in time. At least we tried.\u201d She looks at me with patience and compassion, as though I\u2019m the one who needs comforting.\n<\/p>\n \nWe\u2019re in luck: a large, cheery man points us toward an alleyway. Zo\u00e8\u2019s so excited she twirls her parasol, and I wish she wouldn\u2019t get her hopes up. Anything could get there before us: starvation, exposure, even a hungry fox or rat.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cStop!\u201d she orders, as we reach the alley. \u201cDo you hear that?\u201d She peers into the gloom with milky eyes.\n<\/p>\n \nIt takes a moment, but yes, I hear the faint mewling. Zo\u00e8 takes my hand as we carefully tread down the alleyway, eyes and ears alert, to find the sad little cries coming from a cardboard box. Zo\u00e8 doesn\u2019t even hesitate before opening it.\n<\/p>\n \nOnly, it\u2019s not an everkitten inside. It looks like an evercub \u2013 a baby lion perhaps, or a lynx, which is even rarer. Zo\u00e8 hands me her parasol and picks him up, nuzzling him to her sunrashed cheek. Seeing them together fills me with warmth, and she\u2019s right: this makes it worth it. It does.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe made it in time!\u201d She grins, her delight so childlike it\u2019s hard to believe it\u2019s been twenty years since she had the cell therapy herself; since the doctors stopped the deadly ageing. She may look anywhere from six to nine years old, but soon she\u2019ll be as old as S\u00edlvia was. She\u2019ll outlast us all, given the chance.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou did a good job, gateta.<\/em>\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI follow a few steps behind as she hurries back down the colourful street, chattering to the evercub as though introducing him to the world with all its tiny joys. By the time we reach the line of trees which mark the end of the pedestrian zone she\u2019s even given him a name, bringing him into our ever-growing family.\n<\/p>\n \nShe never runs out of names.\n<\/p>\n Redfern Jon Barrett is author to novels including the upcoming Proud Pink Sky (Amble Press, 2022), a speculative story set in the world\u2019s first LGBTQ+ country. Redfern\u2019s short fiction has appeared in Booth, The Sun Magazine, Passages North, Flash Fiction Online, ParSec, and Nature, while their nonfiction has featured in Guernica, Strange Horizons, and PinkNews. Redfern has a Ph.D. in Literature, is nonbinary, and lives in Berlin with their two partners. Read more at redjon.com.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The pedalcar whirrs to a stop at the northern side of the superblock. To the south children scream and giggle as they run about the streets, sheltered from the rush of traffic by a line of orange trees, and, beyond those, cement anti-vehicle barricades. On the one side the road is tarmac grey, on the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20094],"tags":[20095],"class_list":["post-138956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-43-spring-2022","tag-the-colored-lens-43-spring-2022","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138957,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138956\/revisions\/138957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}