Tuesday

If walls could talk, I’d have them talk for me.

I see her sitting in the study room.

The three gigantic monitors build up a wall, shielding her from the California sun. Her eyes are glued to a tiny cell amongst the ocean that’s a google spreadsheet. Her legs tie into a knot, crisscrossed.

“Let me entertain her,” I’m thinking to myself. “I’m going to send her that white stray cat with orange spots. Her favorite stray out of them all.”

I think Tangerine is the cat’s name. She named him when he was just a kitten, shivering in her backyard on a rare rainy day in Southern California.

“Meow meow.” She greeted.

“Hissssssssssssss!” He stayed alert.

“Meow meow meow MEOW! Meow meow” She took offense at his attitude as he elevated his sparsely-haired kitten tail in protest of her approach.

“Purr.”

There’s something about this ethereal bond between one of my creations and another. As omnipotent as one can be, I still can’t quite put a finger on it. Tangerine somehow sensed her kindness even with the raindrops dampening the warmth she radiated.

“Prreeep.” Tangerine asked for some food as his stomach made funny noises.

She grabbed a handful of her dog’s kibbles and scattered them in front of Tangerine as he retreated half an inch. She performed a perfect Asian squat and was stationed next to Tangerine until the last kibble was gone.

Sun reappeared as Tangerine disappeared. She missed him dearly already.

Now Tangerine is right here, outside of her window on the top of the red brick wall. All she has to do is turn her head 20 degrees to the right.

“Meow meow! Meow!” I hastily instruct Tangerine to make some noises.

Tangerine leaps gracefully from the wall to her window sill. “Preeep… preeep!” He calls out to her, arching his back to expand his presence through the window. He anticipates a big smile and some kibbles.

She remains a statue. Stiff back, stiff arm, stiff shoulders. But those fingers - looking at her fingers move! So nimble, so dexterous. I lose track of time as my gaze follows the performance of a frenzied dance of tapping keys until Tangerine starts to groan.

“Tangerine! MEOW!” I order him to get her attention by hook or by crook.

I still marvel at the intelligence of my creations. Tangerine notices the AirPods before I do, and he identifies them as the culprits of her oblivion of the outside world, her apathy towards the palm trees swaying, the ripe lemons dangling, and his pleading for her attention. Tangerine tilts his head up to look at me, and I feel the muscles in his irises contracting, and I see his pupils transformed into vertical slits. He is ready to try his whole bag of tricks to get his old her back.

Tangerine pounds the thin glass with his paws. He wails at the top of his lungs. He even sets his dignity aside to do a backflip, a circus trick that’s looked down upon in the feline community. She does not flinch. Her bottom seems to be glued to the chair and her gaze to the monitors. The only sign of the passage of time is the visibly greasier scalp. Her face glistens during golden hour. Sunset spills earth-toned paint across the strands of her hair scattered on the wooden floor, fallen soldiers to corporate America.

I don’t usually have visions, I designed them for humans. But as I stare directly at the widening gap where her hair parts. Her shedding hair, a torrential cascade, descends upon the floor at supernatural speed. She soon submerges in her own hair with no fight, no protest. Not a peep.

Her phone screen lights up: 6:30 pm. She finally tilts her head towards the window, and Tangerine is long gone.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, and she will slide into oblivion at 9 am sharp, again.