January 17th.
When I was a child, I loved to read. I loved to daydream. I loved to create worlds and stories about the people who lived in them. I was a 'bright' child, my mother would say. I was 'very smart for my age'. I was 'well-read'. I 'loved to learn'. This is how she would introduce me to others.
But something changed.
While I was... enthusiastic about school, I was never 'good at it'. The older I got, the more apparent this became. In elementary school, I was rambunctious but pleasant. In junior high, my grades were barely passable. In high school, they were abysmal. Tutors were a short-term solution. I would forget what they taught me as soon as the topic of discussion changed. Counselors, therapists, and child psychologists couldn't find anything wrong with me. I just wasn't 'fit', they supposed.
I was no longer the 'bright' child that my mother spoke of with pride. My hobbies were no longer celebrated... My daydreaming and story-telling weren't markers of my intellectual curiosity. Instead I 'wasn't concentrating'. I 'wasn't focused'. I was 'wasting my time'.
I was stupid, and lazy, and childish.
I didn't want to be those things so I did what I was expected to do, what I was told I was supposed to do. I studied hard material I didn't even understand. I cut myself from the childish things that made me happy. I made myself miserable because it what I was supposed to do to succeed. It took everything in me just to scrape by.
There was a relief that came with going to college. My mother was proud of me again, despite my records. Now it was all on the possibility of the future, of graduating with a degree and working towards a respectable career. If there was any breathing room to be had, I never felt it. My anxiety fed itself on the pressure, fear, and guilt of my every failure. Every sleepless night spent finishing an assignment only for it to return with red marks. Every single digit score on tests. Every frustrated and bewildered look from the professors who insisted I wasn't working hard enough.
How had I endured? I couldn't remember. Was it Monday or still late in the week? I couldn't tell. Time no longer held any meaning to me. The only proof of its passing was disappointment after disappointment. When I could no longer bear it, I admit I might've taken drastic measures.
I was forced to return home on a doctor's orders. What sent me there was never to be mentioned. My mother felt remorseful cozied up to me like never before. I was given gifts of my favorite candy and dinner was my favorite food 'just because'. I was invited out to go shopping and to the movies 'just because'. I was reminded of the stories and drawings I created as a child that she 'just so happened to come across'. Maybe she truly did have good intentions but my skepticism decided she was somehow trying to bribe me away from trying again.
If I have never mentioned my father before, then you already have a good idea of our relationship. My flights of fancy meant I would never be his favorite child, but as a dutiful man, I was his child nonetheless. Returning home as I had, a failure, now made me little more than a ghost that so happened to reside there. We spoke hardly, by which I mean I greeted him as we passed and he pretended not to hear me.
Despite my mother's best efforts, my happiness didn't magically reappear bringing my self-worth with it. If nothing else, the one lesson I did learn was that I had to earn it, that happiness was 'deserved'. I made up how I felt I could. I washed dishes, I vacuumed, I cooked meals, I did laundry. I made myself a maid and it still wasn't enough. My mother never failed to remind me how I 'was meant to do so much more'.
My father didn't agree with her so much as it was his only way of thinking. I would not 'end' a failure as he saw it.
"Anise. Come here."
When I heard him call my name after dinner, I was immediately wary. When he invited me to sit down, I knew it was useless to try and brace myself for whatever he was going to say. A smile was on my face but my heart was in my throat. My mom came rushing in and stood over his shoulder. She too knew well that whatever was happening wasn't good.
He slid a pamphlet across the table to me and wasted no time.
"I've arranged a job for you. You'll be an mayoral administrative aid. You can do that much, can't you?"
"I-I can," I stammered.
Of course I couldn't. I knew nothing about how a local government operated and I had absolutely zero experience. As my brain went on auto-pilot, I held the pamphlet tight enough to crumple the edges. 'New Leaf', it said. Strange name for a town. It had large glossy photos of beautiful scenery such as a heavily wooded forests, colorful wild flowers, and sandy beaches. Was it resort town? Was it really job or was I being sent away for 'rehabilitation' like an old-timey tuberculosis patient?
"Good. You'll be arriving their by train-"
"Wait a minute!" My increasing panic emboldened me to cut him off. "But... I live here. I mean, I have things that I do here."
"What do you do all day," he asked flatly.
I knew by his tone he already didn't like my answer.
"I help around the house. I cook and I clean-"
"Are you a maid," he argued back. "I don't remember hiring one and I didn't send you to school to become one either."
"What he means to say is," my mother interrupted, giving my father a testy look. "We appreciate your help but sweetie, you could do so more than this. You're smart, we know you can."
Funny, I wasn't smart when I was failing all my classes. Am I only smart to her when it's convenient or is she outright lying?
"You dropped out of school," my father continued. "You don't have a plan for future. You're here and you do nothing all day. I have enough burdens as it is."
I nearly tore the pamphlet for how tight I was holding it. I folded it back up and put it back on the table as the word positioned itself like a boulder on my back. I was a burden to my parents.
"I don't need you adding to them. I highly suggest you take this job."
It wasn't a suggestion at all, I knew that much. It was a demand.
It was how I ended up standing on a train platform with a single suitcase in one hand and a ticket for 'New Leaf' in the other. I was alone not because my parents didn't want to see me off but because I insisted I'd be fine on my own. The other reason was because I assumed it was still early enough in the morning that very few people would be commuting at this time.
"Miss?"
I was approached one of the porters. He was a handsome brown-skinned gentleman in a sharp blue uniform with gold buttons and trim. He tipped his hat to me and gave a wide smile that lit up his eyes and made me smile back. My grandfather was a train porter and I admit, I couldn't see them as anything but earnest men.
"New Leaf," he asked, pointing at my ticket.
"Yes, Sir," I answered.
"Porter, Ma'am."
"Excuse me?"
He pointed to the gold bar on his left breast pocket, "my name's Porter. Can I take your luggage for you?"
"Oh! Yes, I'm so sorry. Thank you."
I was red at how disrespectful my stupidity made me out to be. I thought he had been saying his job. But it was an uncanny coincidence that it was both his job title and his name.
He took it in stride with a laugh and his ever present smile. I handed him my luggage and followed him onto the train. The cut of his suit fit him well, but lifting heavy luggage all day, every day wasn't a job for the weak to be sure. I couldn't help but think that even the back of his neck was handsome, although his ears were a bit a big. Maybe he just hadn't grown into them yet. He was a young man still, after all.
He put my luggage in the overhead compartment and gestured to my seat.
"Anything else you need, Ma'am?"
"No, but thank you."
"The train will be departing shortly so please sit back and enjoy your time."
"Thank you."
He gave a little bow of his head and left. There was a lilt to his speech, a bright rise and fall of a song in his voice that made him pleasant to listen to. 'What a nice young man,' I thought for the first time in my life, sounding like somebody's grandmother to be sure.
I sighed and let my body sink into the plush train seats. I stared at the window but truly saw nothing. I wasn't really interested in the sights. My mind was on what I was going to do when I got to town. I had to pull myself together. I knew how to type, so there was that. I could take dictation pretty well, I supposed. I could answer phones. I could keep the office clean. I couldn't keep myself from crying. I wiped my tears just as the train started moving.
"You'll be fine," I whispered to myself. "You'll be fine. There's no need to cry."
My self-soothing only made me cry more at the pitiful fact that I was soothing myself because I had no one else to do so. At least I was alone on the train where no one could see.
"Are you alright?"
Or so I thought, damn it.
"I'm just fine."
Through my blurred vision, I saw a tissue being held out to me from someone in a red argyle sweater. I took it and dabbed my eyes gently. I didn't want them to think I was gross. The witness took a seat in the chair across from me. I smiled as if it had only been some trivial matter. Now with my vision cleared, I wondered if I hadn't fully lost my mind.
Cat ears. A blue-haired man with red eyes, black slit pupils, and blue cat ears. Now these weren't cat ears on a headband or the fancy ones that moved electronically. These were genuine cat ears.
"I'm glad you seem alright now."
His grin showed off sharper incisors than the average human. Cat teeth too? I thought stress usually led to heart attacks but no, I get to see cat people. I guess I'd rather hallucinate than have a heart attack.
"If you want to talk about it, I'll listen," he offered politely.
I didn't know where to look. I cleared my throat. Maybe he was just a rich eccentric who loved cats. That was fine.
"I was just... feeling a little bit anxious. I'm alright now."
"I see... Wait, don't tell me anymore," he said, suddenly putting his hand up. "Let me guess."
"Oh okay..."
I still couldn't stop looking at his ears. They had skin. Like actual skin and the inside was translucent enough to see veins like a real cat. Were they surgically attached to his head? I didn't see any human ears on him but maybe they were hidden under his hair. And his eyes! Instead of glancing from one side or the other like a human being, his eyes remained forward as he turned his head this way and that. He looked back at me again and I smiled wider in desperation.
"You're starting a new job in a new city, aren't you?"
How was I supposed to answer that?! Would he stalk me if I said yes? Would he be angry if I said no?
"How'd you guess?"
He smiled so wide that his eyes closed. He looked almost like a sleeping cat. It was cute...
"You're all dressed up like you're going to a job interview and your luggage is overhead. So..." he shrugged. "Moving to a new city sounds pretty exciting. Might I ask where?"
"Uh, to New Leaf," I said, holding up the ticket. "I've never been so I don't know exactly where yet."
Yes, I chided myself, let's give out too much information to a stranger just because he's a cat.
"New Leaf, huh?"
His tail started to twitch excitedly upon hearing this. Wait, tail!? No, my eyes weren't lying to me. Or at least my hallucination was thorough. It was a long furry blue tail with a white tip.
"Hey, I got a friend there! I'll tell him to hook you up with a place to stay!"
What kind of friends would a genetically mutated cat/human hybrid have!?
"Oh no, that's okay! You don't have to trouble yourself."
Please don't trouble yourself, cat-man.
"It's no trouble at all," he said waving me off.
I wondered if his nails were retractable like cats as well.
"Uhm, I'm sorry but if I may ask you one thing?"
"Hmm?"
I had finally worked up the courage to ask him about his weird look when he tilted his head. I had a weakness to fluffy things and cats were no exception. Without thinking, I reached my hands out and grabbed his ears. I ran my fingers along the base trying to find where I thought the seams would be. Where were the seams? I didn't even feel any surgical scars!
"Nyah~!?"
This didn't seem to be a bad thing to my weird new friend as he purred.
"Uhm," he spoke meekly for the first time since I met him. "That feels nice but could you please stop? In public.. It's kinda.. embarrassing."
"I'm sorry!"
Understanding those implications right away, I immediately backed off. He was blushing and his tail was listlessly wagging up and down.
"So you like cats," I nearly shouted in my nervous attempt to diffuse the awkward atmosphere.
"Well, yeah," he answered. "I am a cat! The name's Rover. Oh!"
He slammed his palm.. or paw? It looked like a human hand so I'm going to say palm, to his forehead.
"All this time we've been chatting and I haven't asked you your name!"
"I'm Anise. Uhm... I'm a human."
"Of course you are," he laughed. "I could tell right away!"
So he was a real cat... person. But how could that even be?
"Attention all passengers."
I looked ahead to see Porter standing at the front of the car and looking in my direction as he made an announcement.
"Next stop is New Leaf Station! I repeat, we are now arriving in New Leaf."
"Oh, that's you! Well I guess we say goodbye. Anise, I hope you have tons of fun in your happy, new town!"
"Ma'am, is this cat bothering you?"
Porter looked at Rover with a cheeky smile. So these two new each other. Maybe that's why he was so calm, he was used to it.
"Huh," Rover whined. "A bother? No way! I'm just having a friendly chat to pass the time! You guys need to install televisions in the head rests or something."
Porter ignored him as a minor annoyance and turned his attention to me.
"Shall I take your bag?"
"Sure, thank you," I answered.
I said my farewells to Rover and followed Porter to the end of the car. I held onto the railing as we waited for the train to come to a full stop. I sighed, still lamenting my uncertain future. For better or for worse, New Leaf, here I am.