Cat Season

by Catherine Batac Walder

Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

I am floating. I want to wake up but I cannot. The ghost of the dorm is after me, lifting me up. Everybody loves this floating sensation. I am beginning to love it. Oh, he might do it again. No, I don’t love it.

I know that this is just a dream but being in the shower room feels so real. There is a girl in one cubicle. She makes sounds as if she is in labor, having the most frequent and most painful of contractions. Not having the swift, quiet movements of a cat, I make a terrible mistake by creating noise. She asks, “is anybody there?”

With a jolt I wake up and the first thing I remember is I forgot to sign in the logbook. I know I have to go down or Sr. Agnes might check it early in the morning and she will know I don’t follow the rules.

I go down, careful not to make any noise. Anyone who will see me reading the logbook at 4 a.m. will think me crazy.

Why can’t I find my name? I know I’ve logged out yesterday. Yesterday was August 7th. There, I’ve logged in. I can’t remember signing that. With my hands trembling, I check August the 6th. I’ve logged out, but I haven’t logged in. Yes, that was last Wednesday. Now I’m forgetting the dates.

Fear looms in quiet places like this. When one is in a public place and somebody touches him or taps him on the shoulder, he does not really get shocked. Paranoid as I am, I almost jump upon hearing the sound of footsteps from the toilets. I immediately close the book.

I move as if I’m going to the toilet also. I meet Angela on the passageway. “Hey, Angela.”

“Hey. I couldn’t sleep,” she says.

“You sound terrible.”

“I was supposed to buy Bisolpent for my cold but I saw this lovely pair of silver earrings at Ibay’s and I couldn’t resist buying them. They’re really expensive so I have to skip dinners to pay for them,” she says, almost mechanically.

“Oh.” I’m still about to say something but Angela is already headed for the stairs.

* * *

That morning, groggy from the previous night’s nightmares, I just float from one class to another till it is time for lunch. The cafeteria is jam-packed. Heavy metal music plays in the background and on all four corners are fraternities who cannot seem to get enough of the high-five.

Others eat like starved mongrels. That classmate of mine in Comm II, The Research Paper, orders three cups of rice as always. Well, he was also Angela’s classmate in Comm II during freshman year, and a friend’s classmate in the same subject last semester; he could not seem to pass Comm II.

Gel is back and it is renamed setting lotion. I spot Mark, JP, Ryan, Patrick, Dennis, Joseph; they all have the same hairstyle, clean, with a little setting lotion here and there. Even Francis with all his gray hair sports the same cut. I make a mental note that I’ll research on why the graying of his hair does not start from the root. Instead, the strands are like leaves that dry from the end. It can’t be a symptom of progeria.

“Angela, what’s up?” I say as I come closer to her.

“Why don’t they sell tissue paper in this cafeteria?” She counts the remaining ones she is holding. “Nine plies to go. I’ve only a few more times to empty my nose.”

“That flu is the kind I think you should cure with a readable prescription. Why don’t you just buy anything here and sneak out a good deal of table napkin from the counter?”

Her eyes twinkle. “Good idea!”

“Say, are those the earrings you bought in exchange for the cough syrup? They look pretty.”

She looks at me and frowns. “How did you know that?”

“Silly. You told me.”

“Told you? When?” Angela asks as she reaches for an ensaimada. She has a look that tells me “These are the kind of things I don’t tell anyone.”

“Early this morning. Oh, you were probably just sleepwalking.”

“Are you crazy? I didn’t sleep in the dorm last night. I spent the night with my groupmates to practice for our TV drama this afternoon.”

“But I talked to you!”

As Angela pays she looks back at me as if I’m the strangest person in the world. I escape from those questioning eyes as she had to turn away to emit a loud cough.

Maybe I am just tired from all the pressure, to have that floating sensation. Maybe I didn’t see her at all.

Angela’s words become impressed on my brain. Am I really crazy? Does life in the dorm drive me crazy now? I point to the manang what food I want, but in truth, I already lost my appetite, and the sauce on the beef growing viscid makes me want to throw up.

* * *

I don’t understand what is going on here. I am just probably seeing things; this must be the effect of the naked girl in the shower room.

I think about this as I pass through the shortcut that leads to the dorm. The fog goes down; I love it when the fog just appears, as if it were long hidden in the trees. I exhale, mouth opened, to see my breath. Thank you to the mirrors and the fog that remind me of my mortality and more so that I still exist!

Before the nuns carried out the rule that the back gate should be closed before 6 pm, I always passed through this track after dark. I walked this track probably a thousand times already and I know it will be one of the things I’ll miss after graduation.

“Wait up!” With a start I look back to whoever is calling. It is Kay. Of all the people to walk with... I’d rather kick a can or a stone until I reach the dorm than walk with this girl.

“How are your studies? You’re a Biology student, right?” I ask her. These two lines are my conversation starters, or at least what I ask the people I do not feel like talking to.

“Yup. Actually, the academic subjects are very easy.”

“I guess all G.E. subjects aren’t really that hard. And anyway, you’re not even dissecting a cat yet.”

“My classmates can’t wait to do that. Just the other day I saw Ate Michelle in the garden dissecting a cat. Ugh.”

“The way you sound, it might be better if you’ll change courses this early. If you’ll go to Med School then you’ll have to work on cadavers.”

“Maybe if I’ll busy myself with my organizations, that will keep my mind off the slicing for a while.”

“I understand you’re a member of the theater and singing group,” I say. I am not at all impressed; I just have no idea what else to say to her.

“Yes. You’re a senior, right? Are you a member of any sorority?” she asks me.

“No, I don’t have time for that. I’m not even a member of any organization.”

“How barbaric.”

Just let us reach the gate, dear God. I don’t want to push her down the cliff.

“Didn’t your roommate find her money?” I ask her.

“Oh, I think she’ll never. All my orgmates have been talking about it. I think the whole college now knows about what’s going on in our dorm and it’s really a shame.”

I don’t know why I think she has this look of cool triumph in her eyes. “So, two big organizations, plus the bio books you have to memorize. Aren’t you overloaded?” I ask her. I sound like a daytime talk show here. Can’t she ask more about me?

“I took Biology to avoid idle hours. My parents wanted me to take Mass Communication. Mass Comm! What? Afterwards I’d become a free-lunch writer? Those Mass Comm students don’t do anything except make out with their boyfriends, paint or color books or work on jigsaw puzzles and Rubik’s cubes. Oh, Angela! We didn’t see you coming.” Kay says to Angela who appears from the curb.

Angela just nods to us and goes straight ahead.

“How are your radio and TV scripts? Do you even have time to sleep? Boy, isn’t Mass Comm a tough course! Good luck!” Kay yells after Angela. I can’t help but smirk.

We must be walking very fast; we catch up with Marie who is then trying to reach for the back gate. “Hey look who’s here!” Kay yells. “It’s Doctor Doolittle! How are you today, doc? Been talking to dead animals lately, eh?”

* * *

Back to the comforts of my room, I clear my desk. When the others arrive maybe we can get a late night permit from the nuns to go see a film.

Boy, Angela’s phone is ringing again. It rang several times already. Of course no one will answer it. She went to the university and must have forgotten to bring it.

The ringing goes on again. And again.

* * *

Kay is in the process of removing her socks when she hears Angela’s phone. She visited Angela’s room almost every night the past week to befriend the senior. She thinks hanging out with Angela is no fun at all, “I wouldn’t try hard to get close to her if I didn’t want anything from her. Who would want to catch her cold? Yuch.” Kay thinks Angela is lucky for she has the latest of things.

And, she noticed, just like any careless youth, Angela just leaves everything lying around. Bottles of facial wash without caps on them, balls of used cotton... those silver earrings, Kay saw them on Angela’s desk the other night. She fancies them. “They’d look good on me, I’d wear them once I got home,” she thinks. She stands in front of the mirror and plays with the pierced holes on her ear lobes. They are no longer holes but slits that resulted from long years of wearing heavy, fake earrings.

The phone rings again. “Of course, nobody would answer. Angela just left,” Kay thinks. Just a minute ago, she double-checked the logbook to see if Angela had gotten back already. She also keeps watch of the back gate from her room. No, Angela is still out.

She peers out and sees that Angela forgot the key to her door.

“Oh, am I in luck,” Kay thinks.

She walks to Angela’s room as silently as a cat would hunt for a mouse. The phone just keeps on ringing. Kay carefully turns the knob. The door doesn’t budge. She is too impulsive to remember what Angela taught her the first time she entered this room: you are supposed to push the key and turn it to the right. So she does as Angela taught her.

When the door squeaks open, Kay sees Angela in the act of getting the phone on her desk. “Don’t you even know how to knock? What time is it? I think I overslept.”

Kay just stands at the door and gapes at her. She was careful from the start. But upon seeing Angela right at this moment, sweet, gullible Angela, she can see the ropes that surround her plans all gnawed through. Standing at the door of the supposedly vacant room, Kay lets out one loud, helpless scream and looks at Angela long enough before she bangs the door shut again.

* * *

I peer from my door just as Kay bangs Angela’s door shut. She turns to me. “But we just met her at the track, didn’t we?”

“Angela’s in there, right?” I ask Kay, but she is already running back to her room. And of course I don’t have time to ask her what she was doing in Angela’s room. But I will forever remember the look of terror on her face. I almost saw myself in her, her lower lip jutting out after opening a supposedly familiar door without knocking. Kay’s scream earlier was loud enough to reach the convent. Let’s see if sister doesn’t call her tonight. But she looks like the type who can get away with anything anyway.

It is getting cold and I reach out to shut the window. As I stand up I see Marie outside, with Tekki on her heels. Marie senses I am staring. She looks up at me, and in a second gives me a wide grin. For some reason it feels eerie and I draw the curtains to avoid seeing that cattish look on her face.

* * *

“Whew, Tekki, that was draining! But the narrative seems straightforward. I’ve had glimpses of Kay’s thoughts as well. Next time we’ll try her perspective, for she seems more dramatic. Right, Tekki?” Marie thinks out loud as she reaches down to stroke the cat, then adds, “You know, there’s no doubt it’s far more complicated to comprehend human minds.”