Becoming an Eel
an excerpt

Becoming an Eel

12:05 a.m. November 1, 2007

I remember her stroking my fur in the stark room. “Mommy loves you, yes she does,” was the last words I heard. I could hear that she was close to crying.
The injection came so suddenly, all I could do was whimper. I never was one for a full meow. Just a little squeak, then darkness.
My body went limp, yet she continued to stroke my fur as my muscles stiffened. She kept repeating, “mommy loves you.” I don’t know if she was trying to comfort me or herself – probably both.
My eyes remained opened through it all. As my spirit floated above my cat body, I saw her watch the whiteness enter into my still dilated pupils. Her mother was waiting for her in the hallway, unable to witness my death.
I was confused watching them as my body was taken away. I wanted to stay with my body, but I wanted to stay with them. They wanted to cremate me, less mess to worry about.
“I can’t leave her here,” she cried to her mother as they stood at the front desk to pay the vet bill. “Is it too late to bring her with us? She doesn’t want to rest here.”
Her mother looked at the veterinary assistant. Shaking her head, the assistant said, “we can wrap the body up for you. It will only take a few minutes longer.”
With a nod of approval, my body was wrapped in a plastic body bag, snuggled into a flower pillow case and tied with medical tape. It was like a present without a ribbon. At least I was going home with them.
As if in a movie, it was down-pouring when they walked outside. Her mother fetched the car, leaving her to hold the body and the cat carrier. When she entered the car, she looked ghastly at her mother, “you know that’s Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ that’s playing right now, right?”
Her mother offered to change the channel. Flipping the steering wheel switch of channels as she drove, she paused on a familiar song. She also noticed that she had turned the wrong way out of the parking lot and had to turn around in the first convenient driveway, which happened to be the cemetery.
“As if it wasn’t enough to have to turn around in a cemetery, did you really have to pick this song? ‘The Sound of Silence?’ I like the song and all, but can we say creepy?”
She acted as if I had something to do with it, and maybe I did. I was just happy to get to go back home for my final rest. Who’d want to be burned?
My body rest in the cat carrier as they drove, almost as if I was still alive and going for another ride. For a reason they couldn’t explain, they needed to go to Meijer. I did have something to do with that - reincarnation.
In the small time it took for them to drive from the vet’s to the grocery store, my soul, detached from my body, flew up to meet my maker, reviewed my life and decided on my next life, which would be both equal and opposite my life before. In both instances, I was an animal that she always wanted. Yet, even I wouldn’t have pictured myself becoming an eel.
Instead of my long Himalayan fur and squished nose, I’d have a long sleek body with an angled head that protruded almost like a beak with a tiny hook on the end of it. Previously, I did not care for much for water, but now I’m swimming in it, quite literally, unable to live without it. Be it cat, eel or any of my other bodies, I still choose to hide in my castle.

I remember the first time she saw me. I was to be a present for her 13th birthday. My former parents, the couple that had raised me from a kitten, were going through a divorce, and instead of fighting for custody, they decided to give me up for adoption, one less thing to worry about.
She walked in the door of their tiny apartment, and her mother already had her mind made up that she was brining me home, but I had a couple siblings to choose from. Neither were of my fine breeding. One was a simple black cat who would clean the puss from my eyes when I could not reach it, and the other was a long-haired Russian Blue.
She almost took that bastard! Pardon my language, but she almost picked him over me, the long-haired fat boy. Good thing he scratched her hand when they were playing, making her decide to pick me, the much more refined cat of the bunch.
Explaining how I liked to be brushed and some of my habits, like how I did not care to be carried and was terrified to go outside, my parents sent me on my way. Just like that, out of their lives forever. Never saw them again.
My name was June then, named after a mother-in-law. This name simply would not do, as it was not my true name. She and her mother decided upon a much more regal name for my fine upbringing, Contessa.
We drove for a ways before they brought me to their home, which was shaped like a castle. The guests who’d come and go would always comment on the turret out front, which made the house look like it was from a fairy tale. In comparison to the one-bedroom apartment I had lived in with three other cats, this place was gigantic, but I wasn’t interested in exploring.
I’d hide under the bed. For years, they’d try to get me to play, be social, but it was not my department to entertain. I was merely to be pampered.
She’d brush me and give me treats, so I’d play with her, little games. We’d play with string; she’d dangle it above me or pull it really slowly across the Berber carpet of her room, and I’d chase it, my playful attacks. Mostly I came to her for love, sneaking up into her bed when I wanted to be petted, massaging on her arm until she got the hint enough to pet me back.
The rest of them, we’ll they were a riot. The father hated me at first, absolutely despised cats and the idea of one being in the house, so he and I did not get along all that well at first. The mother was fine, as I was her idea, but the brother, now he was the wacky one, always up to something loud and rambunctious, always capturing me and forcing love upon me.
He’d hunt me down like prey. I’d hide from him, from anyone really. Every once in a while though, he’d catch me, and my heart would pound, as I wasn’t sure what he had in mind to do – I’d usually run away if I had the chance – but he usually just waned to pet me, unsure what was so special.
Up until my death we were at odds with each other. Was he jealous of me? I got to live in a house that he was forced out of?
The details get sketchy when it comes to that, another topic we’ll delve upon, but for now, let’s just say it was nice to be out of the tiny apartment. They thought I’d be hyper, eager to explore my new surroundings, thinking my shyness would go away. It never did, not that I never got comfortable, but I’ve just never been an outgoing kinda gal.
I have my comfort zone, and that’s where I like to be, safe and secure. I got to know the house over time, probably even better than they did in some places, like under the bed, even though they had built their house. Not one to greet people at the door, I’d keep my distance, but I usually knew what was going on, came to be familiar with the voices that would show up from time to time, just an outside observer inside of her house growing up.

12:55 a.m. November 1, 2007

11:56 a.m. November 1, 2007

A blue-eyed chocolate-tipped accessory, she described my eyes as being like a blueberry cut in half. My fur, a few inches long, was champagne colored, highlighted by dark brown at the tips of my ears, tail and paws. Mainly, my fur dusted underneath the beds of my kingdom.
Bred to be a show cat, having my front claws ripped out, my life was one of luxury, hiding inside the castle-shaped house, being fed the finest. The first time I pissed on the carpet in her bedroom, she flipped out, thinking I was sick, which I was really, but it was only a urinary tract infection. Prone to those and respiratory problems because of my nose being so short against the rest of my face, I had to be fed special food, lest my urine be bloody. She had cats outside who didn’t understand this, the jealous types.
I’d feel bad for kittens freezing out in the snow, a place I would never dream to go, staring at me with their noses pressed against the windows. There was nothing I could do, but she would sneak them in from time to time, feed them everyday, allowing them to sleep in cement floor sunroom. A heated sunroom beat the snow drifts or snuggling together in the barn.
Come summer time, the outside cats would not even dream of coming in doors on a regular basis, unless in heavy rains, yet she’d feed them still. Many preferred to act wild, killing birds, mice and rabbits. I could never understand their pleasure in dining on bones and coughing up fur balls that did not even belong to them – I wouldn’t dream of touching table scraps.
Chasing after some scurrying critter, I could understand, not to say that I’d actually kill something myself, but it is a fun way to pass the time. Getting pleasure out of vulturing over lowly human food, forget it, acgkh! These cats would get these wild, possessed eyes, filled with greedy hunger.
Sometimes there’d only be a cat or two, as some would wander away or get hit by those large metal objects with lights on the front that move fast. Those are some of the dangers of being outdoors, never knowing where you’re going to sleep, the dangers of other critters and foreign objects. That’s why I preferred to cuddle up with her in her bed, letting her pet me.
Cats weren’t the only creatures lurking around the home regularly. When she turned 15, her mother decided to save a golden retriever from the pound, and I’ll admit that she was a dog of fine breeding, too, though hyper. She was not allowed the privileges that I received, though she did have her own home in the barn, able to run inside and out while confined to a cage.
The dog looked like the girl, as they almost had the same color of hair. Goldie’s hair looked about the same length as my owner’s, which was chopped to her chin in the front and angled, shaven in layers in the back. She would let Goldie out and run around, both like hellions, giggling and barking, but Goldie would listen to her every command, a finely bred dog.
My owner was both wild and finely bred, as she was gone most of the time for things to do with school: lifeguarding, Spanish Club, National Honor Society, swimming, diving, golf, martial arts and many other clubs. She actually wound up going to college while she was still in high school, so that she could graduate a year early, and I remember how much she studied. Excited to see her get what she wanted, I didn’t know what this would mean,
It didn’t matter to the dog; it would have, but the dog wound up dead. She had leukemia it turned out, and by the time they discovered the softball-sized lump on her neck, even though she acted fine, they had to put her down. One day, she went for a car ride and simply never came back home.
I would have never guessed that the same thing would wind up happening to me, not the leukemia part, but the car ride to be put to sleep. It’s going away from her that scared me, and that’s what her graduating meant, that she would be going away, for a long time it turned out, too. Wanting not to be away from her, she wanted to take me with her, too, but her mother simply would not allow it, said I would not fair well with her.
The first time she went away was the summer before college. After she graduated, she went on a car ride with a friend, but this time, the car did not come home; that car must have gotten sick suddenly, too, a crash I guess. She left with a friend that I had seen quite a few times before, but one that had not been around in well over a year, though she lived down the road.
Her friend looked like her younger sister, both with short blonde hair. I know she lived close, because I remember her coming over after being stabbed in the stomach with a pair of scissors by her older brother. Not even a week after that, my owner got into a fight with her older brother, and I didn’t want to know what was happening, but I saw him beating her head against the wooden steps when an older lady opened the door on them both.
My owner hopped on her bike, heading to that friend’s house, because that’s where she always went when she had a problem, except for in that last year or more of high school; the girl’s name was Heidi, her best friend. They’d jump on the trampoline outside together, doing something I could never understand, pouring water on each other with a hose as they jumped. They were always getting into things, smoking outside and tripping on acid.
On the night of Todd’s 21st birthday, my owner’s brother, they were doing just that, tripping on acid and jumping on the trampoline while a bunch of people hid out in the basement downstairs, drinking like madmen. One girl was so tripped out, curling herself up into a ball and muttering for Taco Bell over and over again, she had to be taken home; she lived close by. In the time the authority of her mother was gone, my owner and her best friend threw handfuls of chocolate cake layered with a few frostings, gummy bears, candy bar chunks, sprinkles, licorice and nuts down the basement steps, screaming when Goldie followed them down the steps eating the leftover trail of food, convinced that she was eating the stairs going up.
Whether they were tapping bottles of alcohol, smoking cannabis cigarettes, or tripping on acid, they were always acting goofy together. Then one day, it all just seemed to stop: the parties, the kids coming by, wildness. My owner didn’t hang out with any of her old friends any more, though a few of them would stop by with time, many years later; she just had me.
That’s why it hurt me so bad when she left, when she went to work. She graduated, wrecked her car the next day, and left for Cedar Point after. Knowing she was going to be a lifeguard, I knew it meant a lot to her, and I was happy for her, but she only came back for a day before she left for college, which was luckily not too far away, so I’d get to see her a tiny bit.
I’d be so happy to see her when she came home, as nobody treated me the way she did – not to say that I was ever treated bad – but the others just didn’t know the exact places that I liked to be petted, the little extra things. She only came home once a month or so, sometimes with new friends or guys that she would sneak around the house with, giving all her attention to. About her third trip home from school, she got the phone call from Heidi, asking her to be a godmother, which brought her home more often, bearing armfuls of baby presents, which she would take down to her friend’s house.
During the first Christmas of my owner being at college, there were talks of leaving me behind, actually putting me in a lowly kennel, as the family was planning on going down to stay in their new condo in Florida. She stood up for me, saying, “she has a bikini, and she wants to come, too.” So that was the first long car ride, driving for over a day down to Ft. Myers.
The weather changed from ice and snow to sunny and palm trees. The ride was not that bad, as I curled up with her and was petted most of the time, though sometimes I’d sit on the counsel up front, next to daddy driver. What I didn’t care for was his smoking, as he’d roll down the window, which would mess up my hair, so I’d have to squeak at him, not a full meow, but a little noise to know I did not approve, to which he would throw out his cigarette and roll the window back up for me, catching on to my little ways.
A second home, the condo was furnished, luckily with a bed I could hide under, but it also had a screened in lanai that allowed me to look out over the docks and watch the pelicans fly by as they’d swim or go shopping. The condo was about the size of the apartment I had lived in before, but size did not matter to me, just as long as it had places for me to hide, leaving me only visible by my eyes that she’s say would become all reflective pupils. This is the place where her dad first started warming up to me, as he’d read a book, and I’d just saunter over to see what he was doing, just the two of us.
He was allergic to cats, which was why he was always against me. On the trip, traveling in close quarters with me, he discovered that my long fur did not cause the allergic reactions that he feared – he thought me lowly. I was able to prove him wrong and show him my regal bearing in little ways.
The trip home a couple weeks later was equally as interesting, leaving the warm heat and bright sun, trading the palm trees for bare trees and cold. Almost as soon as we arrived home, she had to go back to college, though she stopped to check in on how her pregnant best friend was doing first. She’d leave me again, this time for a school a little further away, but luckily she started dating a guy from Toledo, which was not as far a commute home.
Her mom did not like the Toledo guy, a former Army Green Beret, saying he was to old to be dating her, as she was only 17 as a sophomore. By the time summer came, she was going to school in Toledo but no longer seeing that same guy, though going through some stalker-like occurrences. She was coming home almost every weekend, seeing a new guy, though a guy she had supposedly dated before, a guy who worked at Cedar Point.
I only remember seeing this guy on the Fourth of July, when she came home with another one of her former childhood friends, Lara. More than inquisitive, Lara had insisted on poking around the house when nobody was home, allowing herself to enter the brother’s bedroom where the ghost lived. Now this house that they’d built was built close to an Indian burial mound, right on the battle field from the War of 1812, and they built it where barns had been on one of the few northern farms that had slaves back in the day.
The blonde-haired blue-eyed guy and her short brunette friend Lara happened to go poking around in the area that she told them not to go, because she knew about the ghosts from growing up on the land for so long. They wouldn’t listen, and when they opened the door, they saw a dark-cloaked figure with beaming red eyes that scared them, turning their skin pale as they ran out the front door, leaving her trapped to deal with the wrath, unable to open the front door, seeing flames burning all around her. Ghosts of the house liked to give her psychic attacks, visions of things that were not really happening, and I could see through them, see what she was seeing and see the figures that she couldn’t see; they scared me, too.
In that last year of high school, when she didn’t talk to any of her former friends like Lara and Heidi, she had another friend, Curly, who knew learned about ghosts real fast hanging out with her; she got possessed. Every move my owner made, Curly knew and felt, reading her mind and body, feeling anywhere that she got hurt, knowing when she had to pee. Curly’d call in the middle of the night, admonishing her to go to bed.
It was Curly’s idea to graduate early, as she had found a loophole. They both wanted to get out early, saw no need for sticking around longer. I’d say they were both possessed by the idea and tormented by ghosts.
Other people felt the presence of the ghosts, too, which was usually noted when they’d come running up out of the basement, as if chased. Nobody would usually comment on why they’d have to run as fast as they could up the basement stairs, pushing past each other, not going fast enough. Unspoken, they all understood, it wasn’t worth mentioning, it was just there.

1:26 p.m. November 1, 2007