A story
Home. Never the same forever.
Years. Of people and the times of their lives. Days. Of shifting qualities of home. Weekdays, weekends, school and work holidays, times of day, special time between end of schoolday and end of workday. Homecomings transform home, as departures. Shifts in life (or death) change patterns of presences (and absences). So home changes, with or without journeys.
Looking out of the icy window, Mark saw it had been snowing, light but persistent.
Ochre-white layered earth and lined branches, columns climbed trunks, as if snow-trees had sprung up against gravity. He thought snow still fell, but that was a moment's effect of light reflected and rereflected, yellowish, between snowy ground and low cloud blankets. The anxiety that had wakened him gave way to sleepiness, and he quickly slipped back under warm sheets.
Mark pulls aside the curtain and looks out.
Mark pulls aside the curtain and looks out.
The street has dissolved. Whorling December snow obscures houses. Street lamp nebulae, varying form and brightness, illuminate the shrunken universe, and the inner walls define his world. He knows he should not be here, and all he must do is leave the way he came, through the back door. But what will be made of my footprints when they open the door to let in the cat?
Mark recalls the tortoiseshell who fixed him with luminous hostility. He walks silent to the kitchen, where noisy plaints cry, Let me in. As handle turns, the sound's source, like quantum wave of vanishing probability, seems materialized before doors open. Mark glimpses something enter, overpassing snow-heaped step through slit of door, assuming, or resuming, the true shape of cat. By admitting the cat, I have interfered.
Hostile luminosity has given way. Cat's eyes now flash urgency, a call Mark answers; fear that creature will waken house as much as sympathy. His hand sweeps off the frozen layer, leaving moist cool film on warm fur, and loud mews give way at once to deep, contented purring; the only evidence of cat's ordeal minute liquefying flakes on ears and whiskers.
Comfort draws him back to the lounge, where he settles into armchair, followed by cat, drawn by his warmth. Coal, become ashen, still hints at inner glow, and the room is cosy. What if I fell asleep and they find me here this morning? But soft purring ball, and wind's howl, and snow seen through curtain gap, and the thought: I am here! only lull Mark further toward sleep.
When he awakes the air is black. Outside, street lamps off, is dark silence. Inside, the last embers are dead, and the cat is gone. Momentarily, Mark wonders where he is, but smells of room soon tell him. He leaps from the chair, heart thumping, steadies himself, evading the unseen, to reach the window. On the street, white uncertainty has turned blackly invisible. Lightless air mimics stillness. Though Mark's dark-disposed eyes pick out the dull-grey downward drift, the snow's uncertain motion seems ready to cease, resisting gravity with negative energy.
Sound startles him, but it's just the cat pushing open the landing door as she comes from upstairs. Someone's awake and coming to feed her. But the attention she gives shows Mark this is his task. Purrs spiral his feet, then the cat weaves quiet, coaxing mews that lead him back to the kitchen. But instead of seeking catfood, he goes quickly to the back door and silently opens it onto the yard.
Sniff of dark exterior cold turns skeptical cat inward, where she rubs the back of Mark's legs, creating spots of warmth. Mark looks up and is shocked by the energetic starlight which pierces crystal black. He steps out into the thick white, crunching a path as he turns into the entry and looks towards the front. On the street it is still snowing. Above, high over the roof, cloud bisects the atmosphere into snow and snowless spaces; the house marks the boundary. Standing between two worlds.
Up above, Mark sees the cloud has ebbed; house and street now lie whole within the black, snowless, starlit zone. All around is deep, cold still of night. He looks down over the adjoining gardens to the parallel street. One house shows light in the kitchen, but it blinks off as he watches. Everyone still sleeps, or tries to.
A tentative mew recalls Mark houseward. The door stands wide to freezing air, and cat awaits within. Mark traces through his own deep prints to feed her. She knows breakfast comes and urges him on with short bursts, a chant or charm to see the task is done. This noise must be audible upstairs to anyone awake, but Mark no longer cares. He will stay longer. At least until this dark is past.
He serves a dish of stinking cat food and the chant is stilled; replaced by moist sound of eating. In this relative quiet, Mark thinks he hears a stirring above and walks quiet through the front room onto the landing. A definite creaking; but it is just someone shifting in sleep. He thinks he hears soft, steady snoring, too. A cup of tea; I might as well.
In the kitchen, the cat eats steadily, contentedly, half the dish already clear. Mark opens a cupboard, but finds only plates; the cups are in the next one. He fills the kettle from the tap for drinking water – there is no hot water tap, but a soft water tap from the tank outside. Mark places the kettle on a gas ring, finds a box of matches, strikes one, turns the knob, and deadly hiss becomes hot, blue flame.
He waits and listens; the kettle wheezes towards boil. Mark turns to the red formica table and sees he has set down cups for each sleeper and himself, seven in all. Of course. He finds the teapot, which still has the remains of the last brew, rinses it and heaps in four spoons of PG. The cat finishes off her food, and looks up at him from a milk smeared saucer. He gives her fresh water, then turns to the boiling kettle and fills up the pot.
Mark recalls the tortoiseshell who fixed him with luminous hostility. He walks silent to the kitchen, where noisy plaints cry, Let me in. As handle turns, the sound's source, like quantum wave of vanishing probability, seems materialized before doors open. Mark glimpses something enter, overpassing snow-heaped step through slit of door, assuming, or resuming, the true shape of cat. By admitting the cat, I have interfered.
Hostile luminosity has given way. Cat's eyes now flash urgency, a call Mark answers; fear that creature will waken house as much as sympathy. His hand sweeps off the frozen layer, leaving moist cool film on warm fur, and loud mews give way at once to deep, contented purring; the only evidence of cat's ordeal minute liquefying flakes on ears and whiskers.
Comfort draws him back to the lounge, where he settles into armchair, followed by cat, drawn by his warmth. Coal, become ashen, still hints at inner glow, and the room is cosy. What if I fell asleep and they find me here this morning? But soft purring ball, and wind's howl, and snow seen through curtain gap, and the thought: I am here! only lull Mark further toward sleep.
When he awakes the air is black. Outside, street lamps off, is dark silence. Inside, the last embers are dead, and the cat is gone. Momentarily, Mark wonders where he is, but smells of room soon tell him. He leaps from the chair, heart thumping, steadies himself, evading the unseen, to reach the window. On the street, white uncertainty has turned blackly invisible. Lightless air mimics stillness. Though Mark's dark-disposed eyes pick out the dull-grey downward drift, the snow's uncertain motion seems ready to cease, resisting gravity with negative energy.
Sound startles him, but it's just the cat pushing open the landing door as she comes from upstairs. Someone's awake and coming to feed her. But the attention she gives shows Mark this is his task. Purrs spiral his feet, then the cat weaves quiet, coaxing mews that lead him back to the kitchen. But instead of seeking catfood, he goes quickly to the back door and silently opens it onto the yard.
Sniff of dark exterior cold turns skeptical cat inward, where she rubs the back of Mark's legs, creating spots of warmth. Mark looks up and is shocked by the energetic starlight which pierces crystal black. He steps out into the thick white, crunching a path as he turns into the entry and looks towards the front. On the street it is still snowing. Above, high over the roof, cloud bisects the atmosphere into snow and snowless spaces; the house marks the boundary. Standing between two worlds.
Up above, Mark sees the cloud has ebbed; house and street now lie whole within the black, snowless, starlit zone. All around is deep, cold still of night. He looks down over the adjoining gardens to the parallel street. One house shows light in the kitchen, but it blinks off as he watches. Everyone still sleeps, or tries to.
A tentative mew recalls Mark houseward. The door stands wide to freezing air, and cat awaits within. Mark traces through his own deep prints to feed her. She knows breakfast comes and urges him on with short bursts, a chant or charm to see the task is done. This noise must be audible upstairs to anyone awake, but Mark no longer cares. He will stay longer. At least until this dark is past.
He serves a dish of stinking cat food and the chant is stilled; replaced by moist sound of eating. In this relative quiet, Mark thinks he hears a stirring above and walks quiet through the front room onto the landing. A definite creaking; but it is just someone shifting in sleep. He thinks he hears soft, steady snoring, too. A cup of tea; I might as well.
In the kitchen, the cat eats steadily, contentedly, half the dish already clear. Mark opens a cupboard, but finds only plates; the cups are in the next one. He fills the kettle from the tap for drinking water – there is no hot water tap, but a soft water tap from the tank outside. Mark places the kettle on a gas ring, finds a box of matches, strikes one, turns the knob, and deadly hiss becomes hot, blue flame.
He waits and listens; the kettle wheezes towards boil. Mark turns to the red formica table and sees he has set down cups for each sleeper and himself, seven in all. Of course. He finds the teapot, which still has the remains of the last brew, rinses it and heaps in four spoons of PG. The cat finishes off her food, and looks up at him from a milk smeared saucer. He gives her fresh water, then turns to the boiling kettle and fills up the pot.
Mark looked around. Snowlit coolness contradicted the sleep-warm image in his mind.
Damn! He'd been about to make them all tea and take it up to them! He relaxed back into bed, willing a return to the home he'd just left. Milky sweet smell. Hot tea steams as he hands her the cup. Sleepily, she takes it and sips, unquestioning, then realization. Wonder.
Outside night still holds sway. Mark thinks it is around three; hours yet before light comes. He's forgotten someone, a face, wide-eyed. He remembers his own tea though and goes to get it. The cat is in her basket. The tea is still hot, strangely comforting sweetness. He takes a good swig, strokes the sleeping cat and goes back into the lounge.
Outside night still holds sway. Mark thinks it is around three; hours yet before light comes. He's forgotten someone, a face, wide-eyed. He remembers his own tea though and goes to get it. The cat is in her basket. The tea is still hot, strangely comforting sweetness. He takes a good swig, strokes the sleeping cat and goes back into the lounge.
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