Science fiction as a tool for the grief-stricken

Every night while I sleep, I am woken up 4 times.

At around 1am, when I hear him claw his way up the sofa from one end, walk to the other, and take a calculative jump avoiding the 1 feet wide canyon between the sofa and my bed. His nails are at that stage when they are really soft. But also really sharp. He uses them to latch on to furnishings to either climb his indoor summits, or alarm my mother whenever he climbs up one of her expensive curtains.

And then at around 3am, 5am, and finally at around 7am when he gets thirsty. He has his slurps of formula milk, pees sincerely in his litter box, and climbs back up to sleep next to my face. He was tiny, the size of my palm. We have been calling him ‘tiklu’ (the little one, in Assamese) and ‘nigoni’ (little mouse, in Assamese) till we could settle for a name. So tiny that he would sleep comfortably in the gap between my cheeks, and my neck where it touched the pillow. That was his favourite spot. His second favourite spot was between me and the bolster pillow I slept holding. He would squeeze in and turn it into a three-way hug.

Tonight, my body clock woke me up 4 times, with the same instinct.
Only to realize that we buried him last night.

Part 1. Tiny, black, prawn-shaped things

It’s been exactly a month since I found him and his sister by the side of a street on my way back from the gym. They looked like they came from a weak, malnourished stray mom. Their meows however, were loud as a siren. They were both black. And I knew why someone left them here and why no one else would pick them up. Born in a place where they are seen as bad luck, I was not surprised.

I picked them up and moved them away from the busy street, and up onto the sidewalk, where I sat down to clear some space in my bag. My gym shoes were wrapped in a little red tote. I pulled that out and stuffed other things into it - my water bottle, umbrella, and other hard uncomfortable things. I left my gym clothes in the bag, and scrunched them up to make a bed. I noticed that the siren meows had stopped, and they were now looking at me closely.

I could tell their eyesight was still cloudy, not more than 3 weeks old,
I thought to myself.
With a lot of dried up gunk around the eyes too. I will clean up their eyes first thing,
I thought to myself.

They gave me a few soft, almost soundless meows, followed by slow blinking. I knew what that meant. I gently put them inside the bag expecting them to struggle out of it. But instead, they settled in nicely, and turned into two tiny black prawn-shaped things, ready for a nap, and a free ride.

As I approached home, I knew Ma wouldn’t be pleased at first. Not because she doesn’t love cats, but because of the stress we have to go through, trying to make our older cats accept the new kittens. At least till we find a good home for them. But when it comes to helpless animals, just give my mother 10 seconds to melt. It’s like the start of a good (or a bad) recipe. Give the butter 10 seconds to melt before adding the other ingredients. In her case, I was about to add the news that I meant to keep them.

Part 2. Crime scene

After we lost his sister, I promised myself I would never let anything happen to him. The vet was very sure that they were born to a sick mother, and it’s likely they will have gut or liver issues for life. The sister was the runt of the litter, I could tell from the day I picked her up for the first time. She weighed less than the energy bar I had in my other hand. My mother and I did everything we could, but she didn’t make it. I buried her with care and uttered a little prayer. Grateful that we bought her the care and time she deserved. And gave her love and a home, for a whole week. That’s about four and a half months in human years according to google.

Meanwhile, tiklu was doing much better with the help of the supplements. Maa and I let out a huge sigh of relief when he started eating wet food, and it seemed to agree with him more than the formula milk. Ma bought him a plate. It's the tiniest steel plate I have ever seen. It had four flowers stemming from a single branch with a couple of leaves and curls for effect. Under the flowers it said SONA JINDAL 4” . I wondered if Sona Jindal was also a cat person and used her father’s steel utensil manufacturing facility to produce little four inch plates for kittens.

Our older cats mostly ignored him. The female would occasionally hiss and smack him on the head to set some clear boundaries. By his third week with us, he started becoming more playful. More aware of his surroundings. More alert. And just more cat. And something happened that has never happened before. Our older cats, especially our jealous female, started playing with him. Slowly at first, but they became good friends over the next three days. Occasionally, tiklu would get scared of the intensity that my other cats played with, and would hide in the narrow space behind the fridge. After all, he is only 1/10th of their size.

For the 2 hours every evening when Ma goes for her walk and I go to the gym, we would keep him in my room where he would nap till we got back. But now that he has two big playmates, he barely sleeps. And when maa and I go out, our two cats and one kitten, have the time of their lives. Every evening, Ma and I come home to torn newspaper bits here, or a torn curtain there, a bit of poop here, or an upturned dustbin there. “Where is the crime scene today?” Ma would announce the question loudly every evening as she enters and shuts the door behind her. While they look here and there as if they don’t know what she is talking about.

This was routine.
Until three weeks later.

Part 3. Meows and howls

In the locker room, I packed my gym bag in a hurry.
I not only ran 3k but I was also running late.
The pet store shuts in 20 minutes.

We lose tiklu inside the house several times a day.
His black fur gives him the superpower to become invisible underneath furniture.
And gives us regular moments of panic.
So Ma asked me to buy one of those glow in the dark collars for him. The kind of material that road workers wear at night for safety. That would work, we thought.

I checked my phone and I have a missed call from Ma.
I called her back as I summoned the lift to the 5th floor.
It rang 7 times. She picked up the phone as I stepped inside the lift.
I heard a few muffled sobs. And then I lost connection.

I have heard her sob and cry on phone calls before. And it's never good.
In the 9 seconds that the lift took to reach the ground floor, I felt my mouth dry up with the thought of what could have gone wrong.

I called her back.
Listened to her for a brief few seconds.
“Calm down. I am coming”.
I hung up.

Then I walked.
I walked so fast, I almost jogged. I had a heavy leg session today and this should have hurt. But I could barely feel my legs, I was just moving towards home. Really fast. If I had timed it - it must have taken me 3 minutes to reach home, which otherwise takes 15. But it felt like at least an hour. An hour of walking with a body that felt so heavy with the news I wanted to throw up, and then lie down on the road. In what felt like an hour, I came up with multiple explanations in my head. Maybe he’s behind the fridge again and Ma just can't see him. He likes to sit near the warm compressor back there. Or maybe he’s just injured, and Ma is exaggerating like she always does. I will take him to the vet and he’ll be fine. Younger animals’ metabolisms are faster, they heal quicker. Everyone knows that.

I reached my gate. I don’t bother to close it behind me.
I reached my door.
I opened it.
I heard my mother, before I saw her.
Soft suppressed sobs that grew louder when she saw me enter.
“It came in through the window. We shouldn't have left it open.” she cried loudly.

I saw something wrapped in a gamusa next to her.

I don’t have the strength to look at what's in there.

“Have you dug the grave?”

She shook her head. Staring at the thing next to her. Holding her hand to her mouth trying not to cry too loudly.

I go out and start digging out an area in the garden. Close to where his sister rests. Ma came up behind me - I told her I don’t want to look, I can’t do it, and asked her to lay him down.

She unwrapped what was wrapped in the gamusa,
and I saw him even when I didn’t want to.
I hadn’t cried until that moment.
I have a habit of reacting very practically and calmly in dire situations. And wait until later to cry my eyes out in the bathroom or into my pillow.

But not today. When I saw his body, a big lump traveled from the pit of my gut, up to my throat, till it came out of my dry mouth as a loud howl. I touched his soft little body, his little paws, his tail, the side of his head which was still wet. I held him and I howled till I had to pause to catch my breath, and then I howled again.

“But his body has not turned hard and cold like they do. Maybe he’s just unconscious from the injury and trauma of the attack. We’ll take him to the vet?” I asked her.

My mother sobbed loudly.
Took him from my arms.
And laid him down on the ground.

I got my answer.
I should have shut all the windows. It was my fault.

In my 10 years of fostering strays, I don’t remember being so devastated. I cried more than I did when I lost my father. I am not good at communicating, or talking to friends to ease my pain, neither have I ever been to therapy. I have always been able to find my way through grief. All by myself.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

But today is different. Anyone who thinks the loss of a pet cannot be as excruciating as losing a human, I would happily agree with them today if they can exchange bodies with me.

I cannot take this pain that is physically tolling.

My heart hurts, as my eyes burn and swell, as if stung by a hundred bees.
My head spirals everytime I see his tiny plate where he ate.
My mind plays sharp piercing tricks on me as I see his reflection on the ivory ceramic tiles all around the house.
And when my tear glands hurt so much that it couldn't produce any more, I found myself desperately looking for online forums or youtube videos on how to cope with the guilt of losing someone. I read on one of them that for people who don’t talk to friends (or don’t have many) writing feelings down helps. So I did.

I stayed up all night and wrote.
I cried and I wrote.
Then I cried some more and then I wrote some more.
Till I heard the birds at 4am.
I stopped to get some coffee.
And then I listened to the birds and wrote some more.
Till my alarm rang at 9am.
9am.
9.
9.
Don’t cats have 9 lives?
—

A strange idea took hold of my mind at 9am.
If I write down alternate realities of what happened, the power of my love will make the universe split into 8 more parallels where he still lives.
Yes.
It makes perfect sense.

I took a sip of my coffee and thought-
This is what it must be like for people who lose their minds when they are in grief.

But I started writing them down.

One -
The window was open. Like it usually is.
But today, he climbed up the curtain (like I always predicted he would some day) and wandered out . It’s been 3 days. On the 4th day we hear a familiar meow at the door. I open it and he rushes in. Hungry, but relieved. He found his way back home.

Two -
The window was open. Like it usually is.
We come back home to find him napping on his chair. Like we usually do.

Three -
The window was open. Like it usually is.
A sparrow flies in. My older female catches it to show tiklu how to make a kill.

Four -
The window was open. Like it usually is.
I came home 30 minutes early. I was drinking my protein shake as I saw a stray shadow through the curtains trying to sneak in. I shoo it away.

Five -
The window was open. Like it usually is.
I don’t go out in the evenings. Ma and I take turns to make sure at least one of us is home at all times.

Six -
The window was open. Like it usually is.
A tomcat enters, looking for my older female.
He sees tiklu and goes straight for the neck.
Thankfully, tiklu runs back to his narrow spot behind the fridge where he can’t be reached.
My cats fight the tomcat away.

Seven -
The window was open. Like it usually is.
There are no territorial tomcats in my neighborhood, and we had nothing to be wary of.

Eight -
We have no windows in our house.

Part 4. Science fiction as a tool

I finally started seeing a therapist. Something I had postponed for a long time. Sometimes one thing kicks open an entire trashcan of things that we have discarded over the years. It has only been three sessions but it has helped.

Today she asked me to bring along the notebook I wrote on, on the night we lost him. She asked me to help myself to some coffee at the instant coffee machine outside. And she took about 20 minutes to read through my pages. Then she scribbled something in her notebook. I could sense her judging my weak attempt at science fiction as a coping mechanism.

She nodded as she looked up and handed my notebook back to me. And said
“That’s good. You found a tool.
Let’s use it for this week’s homework.”

I stared at her with doubt as she wrote something on her A5 spiral bound. She neatly tore the page through the dotted line and handed it to me.
“Fill this up. Take the time you need.”

On the sheet of paper she wrote:

"Coping with grief using alternate realities:

Consider the entire span of the incident. From the moment you placed the kittens safely into your gym bag to the moment you lost them. And fill out just two alternate realities.

Alternate reality no. 1 - something that was a possibility, but didn’t happen.

Alternate reality no. 2 - something that was a possibility, and did happen.

Note: Try to write them in a positive light, without self-blame."

.. Positive and without self-blame. I re-read that line twice and scoffed in my head.
We ended our session and I took a good look around her space before I left. I mean, she has crystals on her table and healing chakra posters for fuck’s sake. What does she know?

I knew I wasn’t coming back.

Part 5. Raindrops per second

I avoid taking the street where I found them. Have avoided it for a whole year now.
Now I take another route to the gym, a much longer one. But due to a road blockage I had to decide on a reroute today. It's the middle of June, and the entire evening is shrouded in heavy clouds. I calculate which road I should take to avoid getting caught in the middle of an angry shower. I can take the road opposite GCC college. But that’s too long. I can take the other one next to the supermarket but it’s always full of shady men. The sky rumbled at a distance as I contemplated. I guess I will be taking the old route today, it’s the shortest. It’s also well-lit and goes through a safe neighborhood. I put on my headphones, and start walking.

I am walking and getting closer to the spot where I had found them. I try to distract myself with thoughts that I have zero interest in. Like the new construction going on near that house with a lot of bougainvilleas. I am sure there will be a big ugly apartment complex standing there in no time. Things are being built so quickly these days. Whenever I see a patch of empty land with a few trees, I can tell they are destined to become raw materials for window frames for the apartment units on that same land. ‘Coming soon next year - powered by ICICI home loans’, it would say on the board outside the property.

As I walk by that spot, I see two boys too young to be smoking - smoking. Both sat squatted, looking down into the roadside gutter at something. I slowed down, curious, I took off my headphones. And I heard meows. Loud. Loud as sirens. I approach the boys and look down at what they were looking at.

Two black kittens. Screaming their lungs out.

Speaking of lungs, the boys looked at me quite startled, as if I was going to tell on them for smoking. “We didn’t do anything. We heard them when we were passing by.” One of them confessed without me even interrogating.

I cannot believe if this is a surreal joke that life is playing on me, or if I actually created alternate realities of the same event with the power of my grief. What I know for sure, is that I cannot go through this again. I simply do not have the strength to endure another rescue that turns into death.

I felt a raindrop touch my cheek.
I looked up, the sky was getting angrier.
It was 7pm and dark.
But there was a deep red glow behind the clouds that told me what to do.

“Can you please pick them up for me? I will clear some space in my bag and take them home.” They got to work immediately. Not sure how I won their obedience but I will take it. The gutter was about a foot and a half deep, and mostly filled with dry leaves and some wet waste discarded by the street food joints in the area. One of the boys jumped down, picked them up and handed him to his friend.

“Can you just watch them while I prepare the bag?”
They nodded.

As I repeated the same operation inside my gym bag's belly that I did last year, the boys held on to a kitten each. Uncomfortably, but carefully. I could tell they are not used to being this close to a cat. Or have never held one in their lives. But at least they were not the ones who dumped the kittens. They are the ones who picked them up. So they get my vote.

I laid my gym clothes at the bottom of the bag, and scrunched them up to make a bed. Then I asked the boys to place them inside, which they did, gently. The sirens stopped immediately as I stroked their little foreheads. I zipped up, leaving a little gap for circulation. I felt them settle in - ready for a nap, and a free ride.

I thanked the two boys and hurried on my way. I looked up at the sky and heard the rumbling getting closer, with the occasional raindrops getting more frequent. I can afford to get wet. But not my bag. There is a pet shop a few meters away. It would be wise to take a pit stop there and call an uber. I can pick up some formula milk while we wait for the cab.

I walk for another minute, racing against the growing number of raindrops falling per second. I saw the shutters on the pet shop window from a distance. They were closed. But they had a canopy outside their shop where I could wait and call for a cab.

The moment I stepped onto the sheltered area under the canopy, the number of raindrops per second went from 5, to a 100. It started pouring. As I entered my location and confirmed the ride on the app, I realized that if I hadn’t taken that old route today, the kittens would have been in that gutter all night in the rain. They would die of pneumonia, unless the rains planned to drown or wash them away first.

Suddenly.
It occurred to me.

I just had more guilt than gratitude to see it before.

I wanted to quickly write down the exact logic that just came to me. I gently place the bag down in the corner, and look for a piece of paper in my side pocket. There is none, but I found a pen. I used the flashlight of my phone to look for a surface to write on, when my stupid brain realized that I can just type it out.

So I tried to recall what the original text was, and started typing.
When I was done I called my therapist.

It rang.
She didn’t pick up.
I called again.
She picked up on the third ring.
“I have the two alternate realities you asked me to write down.” I blurted out.

“You know when I said take the time you need...”

“I know, I know. I am sorry.
.
.
.
I don’t have the piece of paper you gave me but I have rewritten what you wrote, to the best of my memory, and filled in my answers. I am sending it to you right after this call.”

“Okay.
.
.
I hope you have been good. And I hope you will change your mind and come visit me again.”

“I think I might. Take care.” I hung up, as I saw my cab arrive. I raised my hand and gestured to the driver to come across the road and closer to the pavement so I didn't have to step out in the rain. As he took his time to park in front of me, I quickly eyed the message I had typed, and hit send. Then I gently picked up the bag and boarded the cab. Time to go home.

MESSAGE : DELIVERED

"Hi!
Sorry for not showing up and not trusting you 🙁

Here it is>

Coping with grief using alternate realities

Consider the entire span of the incident. From the moment you placed the kittens safely into your gym bag to the moment you lost them. And fill out just two alternate realities.

Alternate reality no. 1 - something that was a possibility, but didn’t happen.
Abandoned, unloved, hungry.
Died by the side of the road.

Alternate reality no. 2 - something that was a possibility, and did happen.
Found a family, and a home on the same day they were abandoned.
Died knowing how much they were loved."

—-------------