I Just Can't Walk Away

She's sitting down when her life finally spirals down into nothing, the tiny strings that have been holding everything together have frayed and torn apart. She'd been doing so well, everyone said so. Everyone, it seemed, was easily fooled by a thousand horrible jokes and a million half smiles. She'd gotten so used to them that she'd begun to fool herself.

But she didn't fool the cat. The cat who was busy, at that very moment, threading his way around her ankles, trying to get her attention. Just some affection, a little scratch on the head, a tickle under the chin, perhaps a belly rub if she were really lucky.

All she can do is sit, slumped over, so that her hands are dangling a few inches above the floor, occasionally swaying this way and that as the cat rubs up against them.

She can't cry, she's fairly sure her tear ducts broke six months ago, if such a thing is possible. If not, well, maybe all those months of willing herself to be strong have cost her the ability to cry, though God knows right now it might be the only thing to save her from herself.

What good is it all when it's all so fleeting? One minute you're here, curled up beside someone watching a horrible movie, the next you're alone, killing time until death manages to claim everyone else you've ever cared about. The cat, a cat she loves so dearly that anytime she thinks he might be dying, she cries and shells out money she doesn't have to take him to the vet only to find out he's fine, one day he won't be. Fine, that is. He'll die and leave her and all she'll be left with is the faint memory of rubbing her nose because of all the cat hair in the air. So what does it matter if she ignores him this once? In the end it all turns out the same way, doesn't it?

The thoughts aren't wrong, but she knows they aren't exactly right either. Only it's as if she's gone and stumbled into a hallway where there are no doors and no windows, and there's no light at all except the dying light she brought with her. And with every step she takes the light fades until she's afraid to move at all because what if the next step is the one that plunges her into darkness? It's not so much that she's afraid of the dark, she's more afraid she'll want to stay there.

Still, the cat begins to paw at her listless hands, demanding the attention he's sure he rightly deserves, and for the life of her, she can't figure out how to make him go away. He hops up into her lap, or he tries to anyway. His claw gets stuck on the carpet and she watches him struggle for a minute before she reaches out and unhooks the claw, pulling him close to her. She doesn't mind when his fur floats up in wispy clouds, all headed straight for her nose, and for awhile all the noise in her head stops as she listens to him purr.

random song suggestion if by suggestion I mean command. I do belive T can skip this one. :p Tear in Your Hand- Tori Amos. Now. Go listen. Be it the ToaL version or otherwise. I want to fall asleep to this song just to see what dreams I would have.

( you don't know the power you have with a tear in your hand )

Think that's Tina, but I'm too tired to figure it out. Blame Tori and the 26 hours without sleep. Night!