Not For Sale

I met a good friend whom I hadn’t seen in ages. He told me to pick a place, so I suggested the cat café I’d been meaning to visit would be perfect for the occasion.

Apparently, Jerry’s wife had kicked him out again. It was probably the fourth—or maybe the fifth—time that month. According to him, it’s been happening so often lately that it’s starting to feel like a dance routine—only he’s not very good at it.

“This time, I think she’s dead serious,” he said ruefully, his voice trembling as he patted down his rain-soaked parka.

“Just give it some time. I’m pretty sure she’ll come around soon. I mean, you guys have been together since who knows when—you’ll make up, eventually.”

But Jerry didn’t budge. It was the first time I’d seen him this worried since the bar exams back in 2004.

“You know what? Maybe give her something nice—something unexpected. Take it from William Forrester: ‘Unexpected gift. Unexpected time.’ And don’t you dare give her flowers. That’d be lazy.”

But Jerry seemed more interested in the fat cat sprawled in a puddle of incandescent light on the café floor. I remembered he once said he’d want to be a cat in his next life. I’m not sure about reincarnations, but I subscribe to the idea that anything’s possible.

He then shifted the conversation to whether the café owner would mind if he asked if any of the cats were for sale. They weren’t. A few were up for adoption, but only after conducting a screening interview and a series of checks–living conditions, lifestyle, and compatibility.

“We could be those cats right there,” Jerry said, almost whispering, his voice low, while his heart poured a billion teardrops from the grey skyline outside.

The next day, I tried to phone him, but he didn’t answer. And in the weeks that followed, I stopped by the hotel where he said he was staying, but nothing. I went over to his apartment, but the wife would not see me for some reason. Once, I left a pack of his favorite biscuits on the doormat. The second time, I just sat outside for a while and listened—to nothing in particular. I still don’t know why I stayed or how long I waited, but I remember watching a stray cat perched on a wall, wallowing in the yellow beam of a public streetlight.

                                                                            

Buy Oranges Instead

I know a city

where old men say:

never buy flowers on

Valentine’s Day–

not even for All Souls’.

In fact, don’t buy any at all.

Because the best ones are always

hanging from somebody’s

balcony, watching over

lovers walking down,

by somebody’s door.

by the side of the road.

The best ones are tucked

between unassuming pages

of a paperback you once bought

at a secondhand bookstore—

They may have wilted,

they deserve more.

I buy oranges instead—

a bag full. Always a bag full.

I bring them home.

Peel some for myself,

for my mother,

for my dad—

leaving some by his picture.

Then I go—

live a lifetime,

threefold over.