7 Lives (standard:horror, 3604 words)
Author: Mircea Pricajan	Added: Mar 27 2003	Views/Reads: 3479/2228	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A young aspiring author moves to a new home. Leads a boring life for the first years until he finds a cat waiting for him on the doorstep. After a while, he also finds a girl to marry. Years after, wife not home, he stumbels over an old newspaper. And he

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better, he won't be sorry. For the time being, he had made the first 
step. -- The apartment. 

He was sick and tired of the provisional state the tenant position
provided him with. He felt the need to be the owner of the house he 
lived in. He didn't want to find himself face to face with the landlord 
whenever the wind changed. He wanted his intimacy. He wanted to be sure 
that when he locked the door, there wasn't any other person on the face 
of the earth who had the key to unlock it. This was, fairly speaking, a 
natural claim. Owing instinct isn't to be blamed, that is. For him, 
this apartment's acquisition was like... 

...a dream I wake up from in the morning, breathing jerkily and sweated
to the bone, but happy it was nothing but a dream. Oh, it would be a 
bliss! To wake up and draw the blinds, to open the window and breath 
deeply, starting to come back to the real world, smiling. It wouldn't 
matter if outside rain was poring, or it snowed, or what I saw would 
make another leave that spot. I would fix myself a couple of fried 
eggs, which I would eat along with some toast, and I would drink 
natural coffee with milk, while I would listen to the radio. After that 
I would dress up and start for the University. Everything would be 
wonderful. 

But that's the problem: it would be! I'm sure, though, it's not a dream.
It couldn't be. Everything I feel is so tangible, so real; no dream 
could have this intensity. I had dreams, sure I had, but no one 
resembled to what I'm feeling right now. In those dreams I mentioned, 
an impending shadow was following me, I could feel it coming closer, I 
could hear its deaf tramping behind me. I wouldn't turn my eyes, afraid 
of what I might see. I would go on running, baffled, hampered, like 
when you run on a beach and it seems you don't even advance. My heart 
would thump as it does now, but there was no way I could master my 
breathing, and when the beast was closer than ever, ready to seize me, 
a black gulf would open underneath my feet. I would fall into the void, 
surrounded but nothing more than my own fear. It was a comforting 
feeling. You don't learn that fear can be a comforting feeling until 
you have such a dream. It was a relief to stop feeling you're being 
hunted; to know that what was chasing you can no longer touch you. I 
wouldn't even think that the menace was now coming from a different 
direction. I wouldn't realize that the gulf had to have a bottom. 

Then, when I could discern the earth coming towards me with a
bewildering speed, and when I could finally understand that this threat 
I could no longer escape from, I would scream. And I screamed so loud 
that my own voice woke me up. Well, that I was happy of. Instead of 
going on screaming, I would burst into a frantic, reckless, foolish 
laughter. I was saved; I could ease my mind and body with the help of 
some fried eggs, toast and coffee. Reality's never so sweet for me than 
in those moments. 

And reality never frightened me so bad than it does now. Now... 

...everything worked according to the plan. It didn't take long and he
was giving an interview for a job at the best-sold newspaper in town, 
newspaper that, happily for him, housed a cultural column as well. It 
didn't take a hard work of convincing; the detailed curriculum vitae he 
brought with him, was enough. After not even a week's time, he found 
himself in a theatre seat, taking notes for his first review. In the 
next day's newspaper, his name could be read at the bottom of a fairly 
long column. The second step was taken. 

It was a real beatitude for him to come home from work within beautiful
weather, the sky shining red at sunset. And it was a real beatitude to 
have an apartment of his own to wait for him. Once arrived at home, he 
turned on the blue shaded lamp; played one of the Bach's Brandenburg 
Concertos CDs and sank into daydreaming. The music played in sourdine 
and the imponderable atmosphere helped him follow his thoughts far, far 
away. He stayed like that till late into the night. 

At the beginning it all seemed like a happy dream, after a while,
though, everything turned into routine. And like any other routine, it 
bored him; the same way home from work, the same house, the same music. 
He started feeling the need for another soul. 

Then, as if the gods had read his thoughts, he stumbled into Pisu. 

He was coming back from the newspaper's office like always: dull
spirited and bored of the perspective of another night spent in 
solitude, just him and his big house. The tomcat was jumping and 
scratching its fur against the door and mewing. It was a feline of 
noble race, heavy white furred. It was very energetic. Maybe that 
convinced him. Maybe he absorbed a drop of the tomcat's energy; it gave 
him a lungful of air, just in time to save his life, as he was feeling 
as if he was choking of boredom. He took it in his home, he fed it, and 
as a reward the tomcat gave him a reason to live for. Nothing made him 
happier than watching Pisu play, hide from him, leer at him from behind 
the furniture, urge him to come after it. Other times, it fell asleep 
in his arms, while he was listening to Bach or Beethoven or Dvorak at 
the CD-player. It dutifully waited for him in front of the door in the 
evenings. It eye-talked to him. It somehow cheered up his deserted 
apartment's life. 

Not even once he wondered whom might it have belonged to. All that he
did was to... 

...try to sleep. Yeah. This seems the only solution to the problem. If I
fall asleep, I forget, and I'll wake up in the morning if not rested, 
at least restful for the darkness had dispersed itself into light. And 
tomorrow I could do something to fix this situation. Definitely. If I 
escape this night, there won't be a similar one again. Surely. So, go 
to sleep, sleep, sleep' One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four... 

...‘sheep!' 

What? What was that? Oh, my own voice. I'll have to be more careful in
the future. Otherwise... 

...the tomcat gave him for a while what was missing. But short after
that he realized it was only a palliative treatment. 

The real cure for him came later on. 

They met through the telephone. He woke up one night at the prolonged
shrill of the telephone and, nervous and mumbling swears of all kinds, 
he threw a tetchy ‘Hello!' into the receiver. The voice at the other 
end was even angrier. She had read his review in yesterday's newspaper 
and thought it was an insolence. The play he so disrespectfully talked 
about was, in her opinion, a masterpiece. She couldn't abstain herself 
from giving him a call and letting him know. Who he did he think he 
was' 

They talked for more than an hour, at the end of which he came to give
her justice, and, for being excused, he invited her to a movie. The 
rest came naturally. 

What gained her complete sympathy was the cat. Linda liked it
immediately. A person who owns a cat can't be a bad person. 

His life -- he knew it well -- started on a new stage. The emptiness was
filled; nothing could stay against his happiness. Linda was... 

...gone. If only she hadn't had to leave... Why did she leave? She
abandoned me here, a pray for my own imagination. - I mean, I hope 
that's it. I hope my long practiced imagination is to be blamed for all 
this. This imagination, out of which seven novels were borne, haunted 
by at least the same number of ghosts. Oh, Linda, come back, come back 
now; I can feel it devouring me. It devours me from within. It comes 
slowly, meticulously, down on me, starting from my brain. It's a 
disease. A tumor. It went on growing inside me, inside this house, 
inside this town, waiting for the right moment to come back' to claim 
its rights: inside the house, inside me. What have I turned into! To 
believe a poor blanket can keep me safe from what's out there, from 
what's inside here! I've lived all these years here inside (--me, 
inside the house), without even realizing what... why... 

...he picked up the newspaper from the table. When he entered his
apartment, he didn't even notice it. His first concern was to eat 
something, as he had eaten nothing but a shrunken doughnut all day 
long. Linda being at her parent's, there was no one to see for his 
nutrition. He found some eggplant salad at the bottom of a bowl in the 
fridge and ate it without bread, only washed with a bottle of Bergen 
bier. After that he poured a cup of milk into the cat's dish and took a 
shower. When he came back into the living room, he saw Pisu 
caterwauling and raising its fur at something on the table. He stayed 
between the door folds, afraid of the cat's behavior. It was already 
pitch dark and only the feline's eyes were shining cunningly. He turned 
the light switch and when the light flooded the room he heard a 
lugubrious shriek and Pisu rushed out between his spread legs. He 
almost fell down. He went to the table and found the newspaper. It 
seemed old. It was torn at the margins and the yellowed paper would 
have turned to dust at a stronger grip. He lifted it carefully; a few 
yellowish paper flakes came off and dripped on the floor. The newspaper 
was covered with a thin layer of dust. He lifted it to his mouth and 
blew strongly. A dense darkish cloud raised into the air. The room 
stank of dust and age. He read the date written in the up-right corner. 
September 2nd, 1989. He was astonished. Today was September 2nd. Just 
that it was 2000, not 1989. The newspaper was folded in two, at the 
fifth page. At the head of the page reigned a title written in huge 
capital letters: ‘CORPSE DISCOVERED AFTER A WEEK'S TIME', and lower, in 
smaller fonts, it continued: ‘into an advanced stage of decay'. The 
article stretched across the entire page. There were photographs as 
well. Three of them. The first showed a man's face, about thirty of 
age, artificially smiling on the steps in front of the block of flats 
he was living in. To his utter amazement, he recognized the block of 
flats as being the one he also lived in. The second photo was a jumble 
of lights and shadows. At first it was hard for him to distinguish 
anything. Then he understood it showed a room, a darkened living room. 
The place where the body was found. A white spot in the middle stood 
for the bed sheet that they used to cover the dead man's body with. The 
third photo was only partially on the first half of the page; the rest 
was on the other part of the bend, on the second half. But what that 
bit showed were the ears of a cat. He didn't turn the newspaper for 
fear he might disintegrate it and began reading the article: 

*** 

‘Vasile Meza's inanimate body was found today, 2nd of September, around
9 o'clock, by Calin Terta. The body was in an advances stage of decay. 
After the coroner's exam, the police came to the conclusion it stayed 
there, exposed to the light and the heat of the sun, for more than a 
week. Vasile Meza, according to the neighbor's statements, was a 
strange person. He lived alone and rarely left his residence. Gabirela 
Pop, his floor neighbor, declared nobody really knew him. ‘He was more 
an absence than a presence in our block', she said. ‘That's why, no one 
even noticed anything. And if it wasn't for Mr. Terta, the ground floor 
neighbor, maybe it wouldn't have been discovered at all.' 

Mr. Terta had to leave town for a while and asked Mr. Meza to look after
his cat, considering he was always at home. When he came home after ten 
days and wanted his cat back, he got scared as nobody was answering the 
door. After he insisted a while, he tried the knob. The door was 
unlocked and inside he discovered the body -- mutilated. Taking in 
account the appearances, the starved cat feasted on Mr. Meza and ran 
away. Mr. Terta regrets his neighbor's horrible death, but he still... 

*** 

...can't believe it. He lived right here, he died right in my living
room! That's why it had cost me so little' I feel my heart jumping off 
of my chest. And this sweating... What am I going to do now? If only 
Linda was here... Where did that newspaper come from? 1989? September 
2nd? The cat! 

I think I heard it again. It's no imagination. It scratches at the door.
Wants to come in. Wants to devour me. The memory of human blood drives 
it crazy. It would jump at me and it would tear my eyes out with its 
claws and then it would eat them. Like it did with poor Vasile Meza. It 
would slash me until it would reach the heart. It would get all smeared 
on my blood. That would make it happy. When I think that I'm the only 
one to blame... I should have known better when I saw it fawning upon 
the door. I should have known it only came back where its savage memory 
brought it. If it comes in, it's only my fault. 

Oh, God, why doesn't it let me be? It scratches, and scratches, and
scratches - it drives me crazy. Nothing can stop it. Not the punch I 
hit it with, not the bathroom door I threw it behind... nothing. Not 
even death. For it has seven lives. And it probably wants to take away 
seven as well. Me, what number would I be? Only the second? It 
scratches. I can hear pieces of the door coming off. There's nothing 
much left. How am I going to defend myself? I can't do it. I can't even 
move. I'm paralyzed. Only this heart goes on beating. What's the time' 
Is there long left till morning' It seems like everything turns back on 
me. I have scared a lot of people with my writing and now it's my turn 
to get scared. I deserve it. It scratches. It tears apart. First the 
door, then me. 

It's so hot in here! I feel tired. A lousy torpor wraps me up. I've
closed my eyes, so that the sweat won't get in, and this urges me to 
sleep, urges me to the impossible. From time to time I feel cold 
shivers down my spine and the torpor leaves me. Only from time to 
time... 

How long have I been hiding here, cramped' Die, cat, once and for all,
die, damn' you! If you don't die... I'm shivering... I didn't even 
notice it. My teeth are chattering. 

And I don't even have air. I'm choking. Maybe it's better this way. 

Breathe, stupid, more slowly! Or even at all. See, you can do it! And it
seems to also ease my mind. I can't hear the scratching anymore, just 
the thundering of my heart. But this grows weaker, too. Very well. Soon 
enough it will be quiet. That's what I desire. 

Bump... bump... bump... bump! 

Period. 

Good. 

Don't breathe. Stay still. 

Bump... bump... 

Go on, it's working! Slow, slow... like this. I don't need oxygen. I
don't need to come out from the blanket. I don't breathe -- and it 
doesn't scratch any more. Simple. 

Just a little more... 

Good... It's all over: 

Silence. 

* * * 

‘With grievance I announce the unexpected death of my beloved husband,
Alex. The Kingdom of Shadows steals you away from me much too soon. I 
will never forget you. May that all you have meant -- for me and for 
the others -- live forever. In God, may your soul rest in peace. I love 
you! Linda 

...In God, may your soul rest in peace, Pisu, also, our most devoted
friend.' 

(c) 2000 by Mircea Pricajan 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Craig Hale, a valuable friend and a
good writer (unfortunately still undiscovered), who helped with this 
translation. I'm counting on your help for the next projects as well! 

First published in ‘Familia' Cultural Magazine, Oradea, Romania, No.
11-12/2000. A second publication was in ‘Luceafarul' Literary Magazine, 
Bucharest, Romania. No. 25 (517)/ 2001, pp. 8-9. Also published on the 
Internet at: http://www.imagikon.ev.ro 


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