LJ Idol Week #17: The Glass Cat
Dec. 5th, 2024 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chasing_silverAt a deathbed, time drops like crystalline tears.
I measure it in my transparent hairs on the counterpane, in the wheezing and rattling of slow, painful breaths. I wait; my weight is often the last thing they feel, and that’s precious little these days.
I’m growing thin, pale. I’m growing obsolete.
I’ve overseen countless deaths. The heaviness of years sits upon my back; my ears are threadbare, my tail broken off years ago. But my mandate is to keep the watch, until they twitch the curtain closed again.
It is what I was made for, and it is why I remain.
//~//
The beauty is twined in the grotesque. The child is ill; her father remains watchful and hopeful, but my presence, which he has not noticed, has been noted by his daughter already. She reaches a blue-veined hand to stroke me; she alone can feel the softness of my fur, and the comfort of my presence.
“Papa, kitty,” she whispers. “Kitty.”
And he promises her anything she wants. “Of course, my darling. I will get you a kitten. You just need to get well; you need to promise me that you will be well.”
And the sun traces over her wan features as he begs the doctor. “She looks better today, no? She seems stronger.”
The doctor, too, has noticed my presence. He just shakes his head. “Maybe a little better. But sir, the end result will be the same. She has consumption.”
“Like her mother, I know. But her mother lived years longer than we expected.”
And the child, oblivious to the bargaining going on above her head, reaches for me again. “Kitty,” she whispers.
Oh, it’s so easy to provide comfort. It is an honour and a privilege. I rub my translucent head against her fingers. My child, I am here. Be not afraid.
She smiles. Her smile is as transparent as her fading eyes. And she whispers, “Thank you.” Her fingers touch my glassy fur; a breath, as frail as a skimming wind across a pond, and she’s gone.
Her father still argues with the doctor for the price of her life. I touch my nose to her cheek, and I slip away.
//~//
My visits are not always brief. I have taken residence for months, sometimes years. They don’t always slip, you know. They aren’t always willing. But when Death comes in the guise of a favourite pet instead of the gnarled-face demon they always fear, they sometimes give in. And she did, though she had much to leave behind. She knew it was inevitable.
Inevitability, however, doesn’t always mean it needs to be forced.
“My children will miss me,” she tells me as I pace the border of the counterpane on her bed. She takes comfort in my brittle little steps; I can tell the movement of my feet helps her busy brain rest.
“Everyone is missed,” I reply, my rusty purr a balm to her anxious tone.
“My friends will miss me. I told Susan we would have tea on Thursday. She left her card with the butler. How rude not to keep the appointment,” she breathes.
“Death is hardly polite,” I reply, and nudge her feverish cheek. She reaches for me, as if to swat a fly. I let her fingers touch my slowly-disappearing ears. She shivers; a chill passes through her feverish hand.
“A little glass cat,” she muses. “A little milky feline creature.”
“A gentle stranger,” I agree. “Death comes as a friend.”
“Death is not my friend,” she moans. The pain is growing stronger. She reaches for her glass bottle to stop the spasm, but her hand can’t quite grasp it.
It’s like cracks of light through a vase when they resist this way. Each one grows longer; each fissure, stronger. I feel it cracking through me, too.
“Let it go,” I whisper in her reddened ear. “It will be over soon.”
“It will never be over,” she whimpers. And I climb onto her chest.
This is what makes it the hardest. This is what makes my force ebb, too.
She struggles; I soothe. She cries out; I purr. And as the life leaves her body, I feel her resistance fade.
In the end, she meets my silvery eyes. “Maybe Death can come as a friend.”
“Yes,” I say, and lick her eyelids until they close. “Yes, that is the way it should be.”
//~//
She had silver hair, and she was expecting me long before I understood that she was my next.
“Little Spirit, it’s December,” says she.
“The winter moon is nigh,” I reply, but I’m not sure what she’s after until her shaking hands, wrinkled and ridged, slip under my alabaster belly.
“The moonlight shines through you,” she says. “You are old, too.”
And I feel the weight of her words as I never have across the centuries. “I have seen many leave.”
“I won’t keep you long,” she said. “But I knew this would be your time; for, you see, it’s been mine these long months.”
I’m horrified. “I kept you waiting?”
“I didn’t call you.” She settles me on her lap. The colours of her star blanket bleed through my glassy hairs. I feel the fragility of my bones against the wrinkled parchment of her hands. She strokes my knobbled spine. The milk of my back flows over her useless legs.
“You could only come when the time was correct,” she said. “Little Spirit comes with the December moon. It is my time, and it is yours.”
I crack open my eyes. “I’m not to disappear alone?”
She chuckles, a rusty sound. “We are never alone. Someone is always waiting to take our place.”
A sound: a bell-like crying.
A rushing breeze: a thawing wind.
And she holds fast to me as the wings of the sun envelop us both.
“Our time is to join the light,” she says. “The darkness is through.”
Death must always come before rebirth.
This has been an entry for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
therealljidol. The prompt this week was “wabi-sabi”, which is a Japanese aesthetic and philosophy that finds beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. I wanted to take the prompt a different way - what if death was a friend that thrives on impermanence? What happens when the guardian of deathbeds is also ready to die? Who helps him decide how to move to the next world, and how?
I find death to be an improbable sort of beauty and grotesquerie all at once. It needs a struggle between darkness and light to even come to be. Wabi-sabi is the perfect way to describe death; it’s beautiful and awful all at once, and there is always something left unfinished.
I hope this season’s darkness and light will also resonate with you, too.
Thank you for reading and voting!
I measure it in my transparent hairs on the counterpane, in the wheezing and rattling of slow, painful breaths. I wait; my weight is often the last thing they feel, and that’s precious little these days.
I’m growing thin, pale. I’m growing obsolete.
I’ve overseen countless deaths. The heaviness of years sits upon my back; my ears are threadbare, my tail broken off years ago. But my mandate is to keep the watch, until they twitch the curtain closed again.
It is what I was made for, and it is why I remain.
//~//
The beauty is twined in the grotesque. The child is ill; her father remains watchful and hopeful, but my presence, which he has not noticed, has been noted by his daughter already. She reaches a blue-veined hand to stroke me; she alone can feel the softness of my fur, and the comfort of my presence.
“Papa, kitty,” she whispers. “Kitty.”
And he promises her anything she wants. “Of course, my darling. I will get you a kitten. You just need to get well; you need to promise me that you will be well.”
And the sun traces over her wan features as he begs the doctor. “She looks better today, no? She seems stronger.”
The doctor, too, has noticed my presence. He just shakes his head. “Maybe a little better. But sir, the end result will be the same. She has consumption.”
“Like her mother, I know. But her mother lived years longer than we expected.”
And the child, oblivious to the bargaining going on above her head, reaches for me again. “Kitty,” she whispers.
Oh, it’s so easy to provide comfort. It is an honour and a privilege. I rub my translucent head against her fingers. My child, I am here. Be not afraid.
She smiles. Her smile is as transparent as her fading eyes. And she whispers, “Thank you.” Her fingers touch my glassy fur; a breath, as frail as a skimming wind across a pond, and she’s gone.
Her father still argues with the doctor for the price of her life. I touch my nose to her cheek, and I slip away.
//~//
My visits are not always brief. I have taken residence for months, sometimes years. They don’t always slip, you know. They aren’t always willing. But when Death comes in the guise of a favourite pet instead of the gnarled-face demon they always fear, they sometimes give in. And she did, though she had much to leave behind. She knew it was inevitable.
Inevitability, however, doesn’t always mean it needs to be forced.
“My children will miss me,” she tells me as I pace the border of the counterpane on her bed. She takes comfort in my brittle little steps; I can tell the movement of my feet helps her busy brain rest.
“Everyone is missed,” I reply, my rusty purr a balm to her anxious tone.
“My friends will miss me. I told Susan we would have tea on Thursday. She left her card with the butler. How rude not to keep the appointment,” she breathes.
“Death is hardly polite,” I reply, and nudge her feverish cheek. She reaches for me, as if to swat a fly. I let her fingers touch my slowly-disappearing ears. She shivers; a chill passes through her feverish hand.
“A little glass cat,” she muses. “A little milky feline creature.”
“A gentle stranger,” I agree. “Death comes as a friend.”
“Death is not my friend,” she moans. The pain is growing stronger. She reaches for her glass bottle to stop the spasm, but her hand can’t quite grasp it.
It’s like cracks of light through a vase when they resist this way. Each one grows longer; each fissure, stronger. I feel it cracking through me, too.
“Let it go,” I whisper in her reddened ear. “It will be over soon.”
“It will never be over,” she whimpers. And I climb onto her chest.
This is what makes it the hardest. This is what makes my force ebb, too.
She struggles; I soothe. She cries out; I purr. And as the life leaves her body, I feel her resistance fade.
In the end, she meets my silvery eyes. “Maybe Death can come as a friend.”
“Yes,” I say, and lick her eyelids until they close. “Yes, that is the way it should be.”
//~//
She had silver hair, and she was expecting me long before I understood that she was my next.
“Little Spirit, it’s December,” says she.
“The winter moon is nigh,” I reply, but I’m not sure what she’s after until her shaking hands, wrinkled and ridged, slip under my alabaster belly.
“The moonlight shines through you,” she says. “You are old, too.”
And I feel the weight of her words as I never have across the centuries. “I have seen many leave.”
“I won’t keep you long,” she said. “But I knew this would be your time; for, you see, it’s been mine these long months.”
I’m horrified. “I kept you waiting?”
“I didn’t call you.” She settles me on her lap. The colours of her star blanket bleed through my glassy hairs. I feel the fragility of my bones against the wrinkled parchment of her hands. She strokes my knobbled spine. The milk of my back flows over her useless legs.
“You could only come when the time was correct,” she said. “Little Spirit comes with the December moon. It is my time, and it is yours.”
I crack open my eyes. “I’m not to disappear alone?”
She chuckles, a rusty sound. “We are never alone. Someone is always waiting to take our place.”
A sound: a bell-like crying.
A rushing breeze: a thawing wind.
And she holds fast to me as the wings of the sun envelop us both.
“Our time is to join the light,” she says. “The darkness is through.”
Death must always come before rebirth.
This has been an entry for
therealljidol. The prompt this week was “wabi-sabi”, which is a Japanese aesthetic and philosophy that finds beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. I wanted to take the prompt a different way - what if death was a friend that thrives on impermanence? What happens when the guardian of deathbeds is also ready to die? Who helps him decide how to move to the next world, and how?I find death to be an improbable sort of beauty and grotesquerie all at once. It needs a struggle between darkness and light to even come to be. Wabi-sabi is the perfect way to describe death; it’s beautiful and awful all at once, and there is always something left unfinished.
I hope this season’s darkness and light will also resonate with you, too.
Thank you for reading and voting!
no subject
Date: 2024-12-06 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-06 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-06 11:24 am (UTC)when Death comes in the guise of a favourite pet
May it be so.
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Date: 2024-12-06 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-07 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-07 02:57 pm (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
no subject
Date: 2024-12-07 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-09 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-10 10:10 pm (UTC)