Pain. Pain is good. With pain comes relief.
Off in the ice, and falling snow, everything was cloaked in the white. He would soon be lost under the freezing blanket, like the gravel, bricks, like the buildings lining the streets and lonely gas lamps. Like the cars... no not cars. Cars could escape the ill fate if they moved around enough. And they were hot anyway. Cars, engines, radiation...
It didn't seem so cold now, or did it? He couldn't tell anymore. He couldn't feel anymore.
It was amazing how He could forget all his strife in deep claw strokes down his thighs, yet he still felt the frustration. Only he didn't quite know why. He thought he was going insane after time passed, as though he'd lost all sense as well as loosing his judgment.
He turned to ask the advice of Munkus, to find there was noone there, and the alley was empty. The only scent in the air was his own. Faint. If at all. A voice within him told him to go back to the junkyard, only he hadn't. He'd stayed, and hurt himself more and more until he couldn't remember if his name was Mistoffelees or Macavity.
Then somewhere out of the blue he remembered. Why? It was the reason why he had come out here in the first place – swallowed the rest of his unappetizing dinner and left as soon as his useless form would allow.
Floating. Free as the floating fog. As serene as the summer air.
Not a care. Not a fear. What was the point of fear? Just nothing. Silence... Silence?
Smack. Whoops... pretty stars.
Damned street lamp sticking out of the ground like that. Who thought up such a ridiculous hazard? What son of a pollicle invented poles and stupid sharp bits? Damned spinning world. Who invented brains? Who would... oops. Crimson liquid... he knew what that was. Where could that have come from? Falling on the snow like stage lipstick on Victoria's pale face.
Blood.
One misunderstanding. Rather, their lack of belief. Her lack of belief. He knew it was difficult to explain, but perhaps not quite as difficult as he'd imagined it. How could he have expected them to see anyway?
Just a small word, but so sad, so powerful, so scary.
ALONE.
Mistoffelees stopped, closing his eyes and drawing in a breath. He tilted his head to the sky and felt it. Felt the turn of the earth. Felt the fading and withering of garden roses. Felt the seconds ticking over like the beating of a second heart within his body.
Shut eyes didn't prevent him from seeing. His head spinning with the confusion of it all. He only ever saw it in his mind, or in the moon, or in the streetlamp. Any bright light in the darkness really, but it was there. The faint swirling of an untempered rift, a vortex, chronomes ticking by.
Never ceasing.
Was this the curtain call? Was this really the end? The finish. In the dark with only a far away lantern. Face up in the ice, receiving frozen tears from the stars. Don't cry. The End. Wait a minute, he was lying on her back. When did that happen? A lantern...
"Misto?"
Now he'd heard that name before. His voice box was too stiff to have produced that sound. A face, blotting out the shining holes of freedom in the blanket of night.
"Oh Misto what have you done? Say something!"
The queen's voice sounded frantic. This Misto cat should really speak up, it was quite mean of him to leave her hanging in such a state as that.
Perhaps Misto couldn't. Perhaps Misto was dead.
It felt wrong. He hated bottling everything up. He needed to tell someone. Who? That didn't matter, as long as he could get it out. He needed someone to understand his ...ability. Make sure at least some one knew that he was telling the truth, that believed in magic, time. Someone to understand. But there was no one.
He was alone.
Another lantern, to join the other. A little friend. How quaint. At least it wasn't alone anymore. The two became three, four lanterns. A group. That happened sometimes. Cats would patrol the alleys close to the Junkyard boundaries checking the area, or even searching for missing kittens. If they happened to notice their absence.
But it was like he wasn't a cat anymore. Their scoffs, and disbelief clearly stated that this evening, or was it yesterday evening?
That frantically anxious queen was now cursing. Fervently, you could say. That Misto obviously was due for a lecture on manners and when and when not to remain silent.
He then noticed her shaking him. Probably because it was more forceful now. Claws were digging into her shoulders, bouncing him around. He was getting sick of it, and it was making his already throbbing head hurt even more. And his legs. Everlasting. His legs were killing him.
"Misto, please! Oh Bast."
The lanterns lit up the worry on her face. He didn't know her face could even possess such an upset expression before this night.
"Jemima..."
Liquid was streaming down Jemima's face and forming droplets on her chin. Perhaps some were tears. Weird thought...
Heavy rain had thoroughly drenched him, and Jemima seemed to be the same way. Where did all the snow go? Surely there was snow here not long ago, quite thick too. But it had raptured. Just rain now – but it made sense for this time of the year.
He managed to get the blood bit right. However there seemed to be a considerable amount more there than before...
Maybe the rain had diluted it and made it look like a larger puddle. He certainly hoped so. It would be an awful lot for one cat to loose otherwise...