i've been feeling really down since yesterday. maybe it's my monthlies, maybe it's simple disappointment in things. whatever it is, it's draining me.
i thought a walk outside would do me good. i felt i had to buy something to somehow make myself feel better. a notebook, i thought, just a small one, where i could write and doodle thesis-related stuff. i thought i'd also take the opportunity to withdraw some cash from the bank near the school supplies store. i only had fifty bucks left in my purse.
because i wanted to have as much shade from the afternoon sun as possible, i walked along a.h. lacson street, where the university walls and buildings provided some shade.
i could see a cat lying down in the middle of the sidewalk. it was unusual, unless it was dead.
it was.
as i got nearer, i could see it was a healthy cat. it was probably run over by a tricycle, or a motorcycle. yes, those things take over pedestrian walkways just because they can, the fuckers.
sometimes i wish i had a steel pipe i can toss at the wheels with whenever a rider comes honking at people on the sidewalk. a rider being tossed out of his motorcycle onto the gutter should teach a lesson: this is for pedestrians, you assholes. get off the goddamn sidewalk.
there was a street sweeper nearby. i told her about the dead cat. she looked in the direction i pointed to then resumed sweeping.
i wondered if the cat belonged to the old lady who sells candy and cigarettes at the corner. she has a lot of cats. but when they leave for the night, the cats disappear too. perhaps they go home with her.
i had been reading on cruelty and animal welfare, pet companionship, and anthrozoology. yes, that is the new direction of my thesis life. i've been thinking of doing case studies of pets of the homeless, and those with disabilities, in the city. i am still not sure about this.
where do street sweepers put dead cats and dogs left on the street?
i had once been told one of my cats didn't come home. it wasn't until a couple of years later that i learned she had actually been run over. they just didn't want me to get upset.
once, my ex run over one of my kittens, even when i had told him there were cats under the car. he didn't even say he was sorry. we had been fighting, about something i don't remember now. i should have broken up with him right then and there, but i guess i was stupid enough then to stay for a year more.
i wrapped the kitten up in my softest shirt and left the bundle on a table by the laundry to be buried in the morning. i left a note on the fridge. in the morning my mom gave me the surviving sibling to hug.
the bank's atm was offline. the universe sure has a way of telling me things. but i had fifty bucks, so i still went in the store.
i spent twenty minutes picking a notebook. i finally settled for a thin, light green one, with little purple hearts and flowers. it had a sewn spine and a face of a cat on the cover, with the words "Bonds love". i was left with eighteen pesos.
i avoided walking along the same street on my way back to the office. i didn't want to encounter the dead cat again, if ever the street sweep hasn't gotten around to taking her somewhere else.
when a a loved one has died, we say "she's in a better place now" more for our sake, to somehow lessen our grief. so for my sake, the cat is in a better place now.
i wish i could say the same for myself, and find myself in a better place. walking won't really get me there, but i guess i can try.
A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.
William S. Burroughs
i feel like beating someone up. i actually have a person in mind. i've never met her, but if i do, i bloody will throw her down to the ground and grind her ovaries down with my pretty foot.
kidding. those kinds of creatures don't even deserve any kind of attention anymore.
but it's fun just thinking and writing about it. i feel a bit better now. writing is therapy?
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