Magic Sketches

“Ugh! I just want things to be different.” She complained. “No matter what I do, things just seem to stay static.” She looked at her watch, it was almost ten in the morning. She was due for work late in the afternoon, but she was starting to feel drained and fed up. She tried hard to be grateful but, at thirty-five, her life was not what she had envisioned when she was twenty, and she was ashamed that she hadn’t achieved more, or gotten more successful by now. She lived in a small apartment, so small that her toilet, bathroom sink, and shower booth were almost three pieces in one. She tried to figure out where she’d gone wrong. ‘Study, get a degree, and your life will be set.’ She’d heard all her life. Well, a degree and a Master's hadn’t helped her with that. She was missing another piece of the puzzle and she didn’t know how to find it. In other words, she felt utterly stuck.

Frodo the cat was watching her attentively. He was really thinking that he’d rather get some petting, but Sonja was not in the mood, or rather, her energy was completely out of kilter and Frodo knew better than to schmooze at such a time. He just watched her with his big blue eyes and waited passively.

She was in bed, had just woken up. She had never been much of a morning person, which is why the evening shift at the restaurant suited her just fine. She’d linger in bed, playing with her phone for a good twenty minutes —longer if she didn’t pay attention— until she decided to get up and have some water.

Coffee was out of the question, it made her all jittery and she hated the drop in energy she felt after a few hours. She sat down at her kitchen table with a big glass of water and took out her small black notebook. It was her secret. Nobody knew she had it, or that it was her portal to a better life. A life she was hoping to create for herself before she lost the faith she could barely hang on to. She desperately needed that book just as much as she needed to breathe.

She was quite a talented artist, she’d create from her mind or from an image. She had an amazing capacity to recreate something she’d seen or looked at for a short moment. She had also come to realize that being talented wasn’t tantamount to being successful. One thing had nothing to do with the other.

“Damn it!” She cursed thinking again about what her life was missing.

“Meow” Replied Frodo, licking his paws after having had his breakfast.

“Exactly,” replied Sonja, “you know what I’m talking about, right Frodster?”

He looked at her intently, before stretching and moving slowly towards his pillow on the floor to take the first nap of the day.

“I hear ya. Life’s hard.”

She sighed and looked down at her little notebook. The top of her pencil was chewed up, a habit she hadn’t been able to shake since childhood. Maybe it was a nervous tick, maybe it was necessary to receive her inspiration. Whatever the case, it soothed her and allowed her to continue with her creative musings and creations.

She’d been working on a cartoon, based on her life (well, a better version of her life). She had only started it a few days ago, but it was her way of journaling, fantasizing about a more. All things considered, her life wasn’t so bad. She had a job that she didn’t mind so much —she loved working with people—, she had Frodo, who was a much better companion than some of her exes, and she had an innate talent to create, plus the ability to do so. “Yeah, it’s not so bad, I’m just in a shitty mood, you know?” She looked over at Frodo, who at this point was dreaming about catching birds or chasing butterflies. Who knew? He had the funny habit of humming or purring —or whatever that noise was— when he was dreaming. Sonja smiled. Cats were amusing and highly entertaining, even when they were sleeping.

Suddenly she had a flash of inspiration and started drawing Frodo as he was sleeping. On the next page, she drew him waking up, yawning, and stretching, as cats always do when they have been sleeping for a while. Once he was done with the stretching and some grooming, he looked at her, and she wrote a talking bubble belonging to him: “So, what’s that about you being in a shitty mood?” She looked over at her loyal companion, only to notice that while she’d been sketching, he had woken and was now grooming himself.

“Hey! I was just drawing that. Next thing you are gonna talk to me.” She joked.

“So, what’s that about you being in a shitty mood?” All at once, Sonja dropped the pencil. She looked at her hand as if she’d never seen it before, then at Frodo, who was swiftly moving towards his litter box as if words had never spurted out of his mouth.

“I’m dreaming. No, I’m imagining things. I’m so bored that I am hearing things.” She decided it was a trick of her mind. Her very vivid imagination was messing with her head. She brushed the event aside and continued drawing.

She kept focusing on Frodo. He had gotten to the tiny couch in the small living-room and was purring and massaging the next spot where he’d decided his following nap would take place. Sonja decided to draw him going around in circles like dogs usually do when they are trying to find the perfect spot to lie on. She looked over at the feline, who had now stopped purring and was going around in circles.

“No way!” Still unsure about what she was experiencing, she decided to do a test. She drew a talking bubble for Frodo on her drawing —once she’d drawn him sitting and watching her— saying: “Well, what now? Can I sleep and do what I please or are you going to sequester my every movement?” She thought that funny, ‘that’s something he’d definitely say.’

Sure enough, a couple of minutes after she’d written it, those were the words he uttered. She was observing him carefully the whole time. It was like watching one of those Disney movies where the animals are CGI and they start talking. Only this time it was her own pet and he was actually talking. She could not believe it.

She was a quick sketcher, so she decided to stop experimenting with poor Frodo to try something else.

She drew herself sitting at the desk drawing, with her almost finished glass of water, and now she drew a cup of steaming hot Earl Grey. She waited. A couple of minutes later, a steaming glass of hot tea appeared next to the glass of water.

“I must be dreaming.” She said to no one (Frodo had fallen back asleep and was, once again, in his own little world). “This is like one of those dreams that feel so real, and something really fun and great happens that I think is true, but in the back of my mind, my subconscious is nagging me to wake up because it’s not really happening. And when I do wake up, I feel like crap because my dream was so much better than reality. That must be it.” She tried everything to wake herself up. She pinched her skin, started screaming, even went and took a cold shower. Nope, nothing, nada, niente. She was awake and THIS was really happening.

“OK, OK, OK… what… uhm… what can I do next?” She looked over at Frodo who was now staring at her as if he could deduct what she was saying. “Oh! I know.” She sketched Frodo as he was and wrote as part of the narration of the sketch: Then Frodo started speaking to Sonja with his own thoughts and feelings in a language in which they could both communicate.

She waited, impatiently waited. She didn’t bite her nails anymore but was very tempted to start again. ‘I wish I smoked or something. The suspense is killing me.’ She thought.

“Hooman, what is going on with you today?” Frodo stopped, almost as surprised as Sonja to hear himself talk human speech. He had thought he was meowing, but a different sound was escaping his lips. “What in the…? Can you understand me?” Sonja’s smile was so big it almost covered her whole face. She was speechless. She thought about all the possibilities. Was it the pen? Was it the notebook? Was it the day? The hour? What had happened that she was able to do this?

“Yes, Frodo, I can understand you, buddy. What should I do next?” She inquired, her imagination flying wild every which way.

“I don’t know about you, but I sure could use some more space around here.”

“You are right, we should move. That shouldn’t be too hard. I can just sketch us in another place, a much bigger place… no, wait, that could present some issues. I can sketch that I have a million dollars in my account… no, wait, that might seem suspicious and then I can get investigated by the government. Let’s see… OK, let’s start small. How about I sketch that I find many letters that relatives have sent me over the years where they give me a couple of hundred dollars for each letter, amounting to twenty thousand dollars for all the birthdays and Christmases and other special occasions? I mean, that wouldn’t be too weird. Also, it’s enough money to upgrade and also cover some of my debts, and feel a bit less stressed about my situation.”

Frodo just looked at her, perhaps he had nothing to add. Then she thought that maybe this newfound superpower was like one of those toys that you have to wind-up every so often so that they work. As she was considering that possibility, Frodo sighed and said: “Well, I don’t really know what that means, but if it allows us to have some more room, I’m all for it. I’m gonna go back to sleep now if you don’t mind. This is way too weird for me.”

“Me too, buddy, me too,” Sonja muttered to herself.

She got to work. She sketched many envelopes with her address on the front, and the many other addresses in the back, stamps and, inside each envelope, a letter that she left blank (she didn’t want to put words that her relatives hadn’t actually said), and many bills, making sure it wasn’t more than what she had originally considered. She liked that number. In her drawing, she placed them among all the letters that she’d kept over the years from all her family and friends.

She waited half an hour —just to be sure—, then went through all her envelopes and found them all, one by one.

She realized this new gift was an opportunity to give back, to pay it forward for all the times that she had needed (and was granted) help.

She felt whole. She felt worthy. She sat next to Frodo, who decided to move and sit on her lap, while she petted him and closed her eyes to take it all in.