Looking Glass Cat

Looking Glass Cat

Susan smiled as she watched Gus paw at his reflection in the mirror.

"Did you find another cat to play with?" she asked, and Gus looked back with a meow before pawing at his reflection again.

She was glad that Gus had found someone to play with, even if it was his reflection. Gus had been depressed lately. They said that having only one cat could lead to this sort of thing, cats being social animals. Gus couldn't really play with the strays outside Susan's apartment because she was on the third floor and a little out of reach for even the most nimble of the wandering felines. This didn't stop Gus from standing on her balcony, though, merowing at the cats below and trying to get their attention. Susan thought it was kind of sad to watch him pawing at the screen as he called down to the cats who lived out their lives in blissful freedom.

But, the apartment contract had been very clear on their one pet per unit policy, and Susan didn't want to move so that Gus could have a playmate.

Gus was a big orange tom cat that Susan had found wandering near her parent's house before she moved out. He had been a scrawny little kitten when she found him, and she had fallen in love almost instantly. Susan had just gone through a bad breakup when she stumbled across the sad little kitten near the garbage cans one morning. The little fuzzball had helped her through her loneliness, and she liked to think she had helped him as well. When she moved out of her parent's house at the end of the year, Susan had taken the little cat with her, and she and Gus had been together ever since. Gus was a great companion and didn't seem prone to the midnight zoomies or the sometimes destructive behavior her friends complained about. Gus liked his scratching post, snuggling in bed with Susan until it was time for her to get up and eating his own food instead of hers.

His only real issue seemed to be his loneliness, and Susan could hardly hold that against him.

Watching him play with his reflection in the mirror was as cute as it was sad, like a kid playing with his imaginary friend because he couldn't seem to make any real ones.

Susan watched him as she got ready for work, and she pulled out her phone as she took some videos for her Instagram. The scrawny kitten had grown into a regal orange ball of fur and to watch him paw at the surface of the mirror was insanely cute. He would cock his head and meow at his reflection sometimes, looking confused at the cat in the mirror, before going back to pawing at the glass. Susan smiled, but there was something just a little off-putting about that confused head turn now and again.

She left him staring at himself in the mirror, his game forgotten, as he seemed to be talking to the orange cat in the mirror.

Susan came home to find Gus sitting in front of the mirror. She asked him if he'd been sitting there all day, and Gus just looked back and meowed before turning back to his reflection. He was staring at himself, his ears moving back and up, seeming to Susan like he was having a conversation with his reflection. Growing up with cats, she had seen them sit next to each other in just that same way, and Gus's eye contact was more than a little interested as he watched himself in the mirror. She tried to ignore him as she slid into her PJs, but it was hard the longer it went on.

"Come on, Gus. Wanna watch a movie with me?" She said, patting the bed as she fiddled through the tv menu.

Gus looked up, meowing happily, but then turned back to the mirror and did an oddly unsure little head cock as he took a step towards the bed.

In the end, Susan had to come get him and take him over to the bed as the poor old Tom watched the mirror. Susan saw nothing out of the ordinary, the mirror cat being scooped up by her reflection as usual, but his behavior was wandering into the realm of creepy rather than cute. Gus sat with her happily as Susan watched Friends for the thousandth time, but she caught him glancing back at the mirror more than once as she stroked his silky fur. He wasn't the only one. Susan couldn't help but glance back as well, looking at the mirror as if she expected to see something out of the ordinary.

She didn't, but it was definitely starting to creep her out.

* * * * *

Susan let her keys fall into the bowl by the door, calling for Gus as she slid her shoes off.

It had been such a long day. A creepy old man had hit on her at work, the customers were rude as ever, and Susan sometimes wondered why she didn't just quit. She could do better than an assistant manager at a grocery store, and she knew it. If it hadn't been for Gus and this apartment, she'd have likely walked out a while ago. Speaking of Gus, where the heck was he? He almost always came to greet her at the door.

She called him again, but there was still no response.

She went to the bedroom and huffed out in mock outrage when she saw him sitting in front of the mirror again.

"Okay, fur face, this is getting to be a little much. It was cute at first, but now it's a little creepy."

He meowed pitifully when she picked him up, pawing gently as he tried to get away, but she took him over to the bed and sat him down. He watched her dutifully as she got changed, his fluffy head turning back to the mirror from time to time as Susan slid into her pajamas, and Susan couldn't help glancing at it as well. She wasn't sure, but it felt like she could see something moving there when she wasn't giving it her full attention.

The mirror was the large rolling kind that apartments often have in closet doors. You could see the whole room in it, and it slid to the side on tracks if you needed something out of the closet. It was a nice amenity to have when you were getting ready in the morning, but it was starting to creep Susan out the longer she looked at it. She got that spidery feeling as she put her back to it like something was watching her, and when she pulled her hair into a ponytail and turned to put it up, she almost dropped her scrunchy.

Gus was staring at her, head cocked, as he watched her from in front of the mirror.

She stepped back, startled, and when her legs bumped against the chair in front of her vanity, she sat down hard.

Something came off the bed then, and she heard Gus meow as he looked up at her as if to ask if she were okay.

Susan looked back at the mirror and saw that it was empty again, save for her own surprised face and the furry reflection of Gus as he stood by her leg.

That was the first night that she covered the mirror.

She took some thumb tacks and an old throw blanket and used them to cover the surface. It was silly, she knew it was silly, but she felt better when the mirror surface wasn't looking at her anymore. Gus walked over to inspect her work, and Susan picked him up as he began to paw at the blanket. Gus would just have to get over it, she thought, as she took him to bed and put something on to distract her from her fears. As she scratched his ears, she felt better, and as the night went on, she almost forgot all about her silly fears from earlier.

When she woke up, though, she saw that the blanket had been pulled down, and Gus was again talking to himself.

This became a daily routine for her. The first thing she did when she got up or got home from work was to cover the mirror and tell Gus to stop pulling the blanket down. Gus would meow when she did this, looking at the blanket and pawing at the covered surface of the mirror, but Susan was unmoving in her decision to keep the blanket up. She would usually pick Gus up as he pawed pathetically at the blanket and took him off to pet him, but it never stopped him from coming back to it, and Susan just accepted it as Gus's new obsession.

The cuts on her big fluff ball were a little harder to ignore.

Sometimes, while stroking his silky coat, Susan would encounter a scratch or a bite and wonder how exactly he had gotten it. They weren't the sort of wounds a cat could get from just scratching themselves; at least, she didn't think they were. When she noticed a bite on the tip of his ear one afternoon, she actually searched the house to see if another cat might have gotten in somehow. His food bowls never emptied any quicker than usual, and there was never any extra scat in his box. If there was some secret cat living in the house, it was extremely quiet when she was there.

The only strange thing was Gus's melancholy seemed to have disappeared. His mood had improved, and he spent less time meowing to the cat below from the balcony. The only change was that she had to shoo him away from the mirror constantly. If he wasn't in her lap being petted, Gus was at the mirror or at the blanket that covered it. He never took it down while she was there, but he would put his face underneath it or just stare at it like he could hear someone talking. Susan found this extremely off-putting, but what could she do? The mirror was attached to the closet door, and without it, Gus would be free to leave his long orange fur all over the clothes she had hanging in there. Also, as much as it creeped her out, she couldn't stand to think of Gus being sad again while she was at work.

Then one day, something changed.

She came home to find the blanket down and Gus looking at himself as he always did.

"Seriously, Gus? This is getting annoying. I hate having to put this blanket back up every," but she stopped when Gus turned his amber eyes to regard her.

The two held their gaze for a few moments, but Susan couldn't help but hear the voice of her subconscious as it screamed that this wasn't her cat. It looked like Gus, sat like Gus, and was a perfectly adorable little ball of orange fluff, but his eyes were….different. They were the same amber gold they had always been, but today they were filled with hate. No, not hate, Susan supposed. It was something else. It was like a king looking at a mud-covered surf. Not with pity, and certainly not with a desire to help it.

Gus looked at her with scorn and something akin to disgust.

How a cat could portray these things with its fuzzy little face, Susan didn't know, but that's what it was.

Gus loathed her.

She suddenly caught him by the scruff, and when he hissed at her, Susan realized it was the first time she'd heard him do that. He swiped a fat ginger paw at her, and Susan almost dropped him as his claws sliced her wrist. Gus yowled and cried in his angry little voice, a voice that was suddenly less cute than usual, and Susan tossed him into the hall as she closed the door.

Gus bumped at it, hissing and yowling, and Susan was surprised when she realized that her back was against the door. It was like she thought he might come in again. She locked it, just in case, and walked into her bathroom as she washed the cut with soap and water. It wasn't very deep, but the three long scratches had been right across her wrist.

She had just finished putting some bactine on it and was looking for a bandaid when she heard Gus's pitiful meow from the other room.

That sounded more like the loveable fluff Susan knew, so she slapped the bandaid on and went to open her bedroom door. Perhaps she had just startled him like he had startled her. She hadn't grabbed him by the scruff of the neck since he was a kitten, and he was quite a bit heavier now. Susan suddenly wondered if she had hurt him and opened the door as she prepared to pull him into a hug.

"Sorry, Gus. You scared me. I wasn't," but she stopped when she noticed that he wasn't there.

She checked the hall, but he was nowhere to be found.

Susan shrugged, tallying it up to strange cat behavior, and finished doctoring her arm before going to start dinner.

As she cooked, she kept expecting to see Gus come out for a sniff or to rub up against her leg. Gus was always so curious, and he always came to have a look while she was cooking or watching TV. He had even jumped into the shower with her a few times, though he always instantly regretted it. She began to feel guilty about what had happened earlier and just wanted to find him so she could pet him and say she was sorry. Even so, those weird eyes kept coming back to her, and she couldn't shake the idea that the cat hadn't been her Gus.

She didn't see him until she was cleaning up and getting ready to take the garbage out.

Susan was in a bit of a hurry as she tied the bag up and pulled it out of the can. The plastic pan the chicken had been in was likely leaking into the bottom of the bag, and she wanted to get it to the dumpster before it dripped onto the floor. She hadn't seen Gus since she'd put him out, not even as she ate chicken alfredo on the couch. He was likely still sulking somewhere, but she figured he'd come out when it was time for bed, and all would be forgiven by tomorrow.

She thought she might have heard him, though, and he sounded upset wherever he was. Susan had cocked an ear several times as she cooked, listening to the meows of a familiar cat from the back of the house. She had called him, even taken the tuna he liked back there to coax him out, but he had never poked his head out or shown any interest in any of it. Susan had looked all over for him a few times, but as the sound of her sauce bubbling began to sound like it might burn, she always returned to the stove.

She walked to the door with her swinging bag of trash, and when the door came open with a loud creak, she heard claws scrabbling on linoleum. Susan saw an orange lightning bolt come barreling out from behind the china cabinet and make a break for the open door. She moved purely by chance, and Gus hit the trash bag as he yowled and smacked against the cans and packages inside. Susan dropped the bag, no longer mindful of the chicken drippings, and reached for Gus before he could escape. He had never tried to run before, not even as a half-feral little kitten, and when her hands settled around him, he yowled and slashed at her furiously. He clawed at her hands, swiped at her face, and Susan stepped back when one paw scored her across the cheek and thought about the garbage a little too late.

Whether it was the chicken leavings or some other liquid, Susan felt her feet shoot out from under her and fell against the china cabinet.

Her head smacked hard against the bulky old thing, and everything went fuzzy as she watched Gus run off into the night.

She called his name distantly before passing out and woke up somewhere very different.

Susan woke up in the hospital. Her mom was reading a magazine, but as Susan groaned, she called the nurse and leaned in to look at her. The nurse came on the run, and Susan was soon poked, prodded, and examined by her mother and several people in scrubs. She was confused and a little scared, and when she asked what was happening, it took her Dad coming in from the cafeteria to shed any light on the situation.

The complex had called her parents, since they were her emergency contact, to let them know that a neighbor had found her passed out in her doorway. They had called an ambulance, and she had been rushed to the ER with a head wound. She had been unconscious for three day with a bad concussion, and her parents had been worried sick.

She asked her dad if he'd been to the apartment and if he'd seen Gus, but he said he hadn't done much more than put some food in his bowl and lock the place up.

"He's probably okay, sweety. Cats are pretty self-reliant. I'll go back tonight and make sure he has food in his bowl."

They wanted to keep her at the hospital until they were sure that she was okay, but Susan was adamant that she needed to leave. Gus had gotten out, and she needed to find him. He had been scared by the garbage bag and startled when she grabbed him. He hadn't meant to scratch her. He was probably cold and scared and waiting for her to come home, and she started to cry when they told her it would be a few more days before she was released.

Her dad didn't help matters much. He checked on Gus but said he must have gotten out. His food bowl was still full, and he hadn't come when her dad had called for him. He had looked around but hadn't seen any sign of him.

"I'm sure he's just scared and waiting for you to come back. He'll probably meet you at the door when you come home from the hospital," he assured her, her face showing worry.

She came home three days later after the hospital had run every test they could think of, and Susan was greeted by nothing but a plain beige door and a note from her neighbor wishing her a speedy recovery. She opened the front door, thinking maybe he would be there, but the house was cold and empty. It felt lonely without Gus there to welcome her, and she decided then and there to go look for him. Maybe he was close by, playing with the cats he had seen from the balcony. She would get some treats and call him, and hopefully, he would come back after some coaxing, and they could be a family again.

She was halfway down the hallways when she recognized a pitiful mew from her bedroom.

She came through the door, looking frantically for Gus. Had he gotten stuck in her bedroom? How had he been eating and drinking for a whole week? She expected he would come pelting out when the door opened, but he was nowhere to be found. She started looking for him, under the bed and in the closet, but when the same sad little meow came from behind her, she turned and found the source.

It was Gus. He was just as fluffy as she remembered him, and it broke her heart to see how thin he looked under all his fur. He looked troubled, his eyes darting around as he put his paws up, pleading for her to help him. He looked sorry like he would do anything if she would help him get out of this, and as she approached him, Susan could feel her tears coming down in a torrent.

Gus pressed his paws against the mirror.

His toes were visible from the other side, and as he pressed and shoved, she could see he was becoming upset.

Gus was stuck inside the mirror, his world nothing more than the little room he had loved so much.

Susan put a hand up to the mirror, covering his little paw with hers, and only then noticed that she didn't have a reflection.

She sat and wondered if she'd have to watch her poor Gus waste away, unable to help him, and she laid her forehead against the glass as she cried all the harder.