"Just the wrong self" -- Kichebo

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"I'm here again, father."  The sole form in the entire area pauses for a moment, 
smiling ruefully.  "Five years you've been gone, yet I still talk with you as 
though you're still here.  I guess...  Maybe I'm still dealing with it in my own 
way."  A gentle breeze sweeps down from the overcast sky, ruffling through the 
speakers' hair.  He subconciously raises a gloved hand to smooth it back down, 
then continues.  "I wish you were still here...  I've finally found my true self.  
You always told me to just be myself and things would work out OK, right?  It 
seems that all this time....

...I was just the wrong self."

A brief flash of light that signals the beginning of an approaching rainstorm 
lights up both the recessed gravestone and the black-furred face of the speaker.

----

     "If a body that suffers is done with sin
          as Saint Peter said,
      Then I saw perfection's bones barely holdin' skin
          meltin' in the bed...."

The new song he'd just recently heard repeated in his mind as he trudged back 
through the twin swinging doors of the 3rd floor Oncology Ward of St. Mary's 
hospital.  His Drama coach at school had praised his 'strength' in appearing to 
deal with his father's recent diagnosis of cancer.  'Strength?  It's still shock...'
He'd said to himself.  'Dad went in for stomach pains, and came out with the word 
that he'd an advanced stage of colon cancer....'

301....303.....305.... 309.  He quietly enters and just sits silently by his dad's 
bed.

"They're moving him to Hospice tomorrow."

Ric looked up at his mother at those words.  'That's...  Where they put people who're
on their way out....  So they have a pleasant last few days...'  He mused for a moment.

"There's a chance he can still recover, though, right?"  Trying to be the strong and
optimistic son he'd been through this whole ordeal.  His mom just quietly nodded, and 
took her mate's hand in hers once again.

The next day when he'd returned, Ric was directed to a different room...  In the 
far corner from where he had gotten used to seeing his dad's form slowly go from the
strong Air Force Sargeant and part-time mechanic to a weak wisp of a man who couldn't
even eat solid food.  His dad was in a new bed, propped up to a semi-reclined position
and hooked up to all the familiar machines, some of which had even gone home with him
during his brief time back home.

Ric went in, gave his dad a hug, made a few feeble attempts at joking, careful not
to make his dad bust a stitch again like he had a month prior.  After only ten minutes 
or so, after giving his dad a reassuring squeese of the hand, he left, heading around the
corner into the small relief room.

'If he dies....  I will too....'  part of him argued.

'Don't do that.  What would mom do if she were to lose BOTH of 'her men' in less than a
week?'

'I don't care.  He's been there...  all my life.  I don't WANT to live without him.'

'That's damn selfish.'

"Ric?  He's....  Not going to be much longer."  Jim, his father's brother was standing in 
the doorway.

Barely able to find his voice, the younger croaked out....  "I know."

"Do you want to see him?"

'No...  I want to remember his wonderful Tenor, not his nasal tube-strained voice.'

Ric nodded and forced himself to his feet.  He rounded the corner, gave his dad a hug, 
whispered an 'I love you, dad' that he's not sure is heard, then leaves the room.

----

After a small funeral that packed the church more than it had ever been filled before, and
a moving service outdoors that included a seven-gun salute, three figures - mother, son and 
daughter - stood at a small plaque recessed into the ground.  A bit of marble with an etching
of a ray of sunlight piercing a cloud in the upper corner.

So much like him.

----

     "Now he's three years' gone and I still can't look
          at tears in my mothers' eyes.
      She says 'Son, what matters most is the way you live your life
          And that Heaven is Home."

The song ends, and Ric hits the 'repeat' button again for the third time.  His young pet cat
yawns and stretches as she uncurls from the bed created by a sleeping bag spread out over
moving boxes in the back seat of the little car, and nuzzles the driver's right elbow.

Brought out of one of the few moments of true emotion he'd felt in years, he smiles and
drives one-handed down the highway long enough to skritch the head of his cat.

"We're almost there, dear.  Just a few more hours."

He'd finally made the attempt to strike out on his own, moving 300-plus miles from home to a 
city he'd only visited before.  He had friends there who shared the same admiration for 
animals he did, anthropomorphics in particular.

He felt great letting some of his inhibitions go, letting the part of him he knew to be feline
out to play.  He'd always felt a kinship with cats, making friends with 'demon' cats....
his attachment to his own that he'd adopted from the pound only about 6 months prior.

He arrived, and lived moderately well for a few months, but his job soon drew him away 
from the town he'd only recently settled into, so he moved once more, though this time
only 70 miles distant.  Now he found himself in an area that had even more furry influence...
even other feline devotees.

The young man found himself wishing for the ability to be a feline hybrid...  The grace...
the skill...  the personality.  He looked down a bit as he felt a set of four paws arrive
on his chest as he laid on his bed.  "Hello, there, 'nevka-kitty".  He smiled a bit as
she began purring at him while nuzzling his chin.  He reached up to pet the back of her
neck lightly, skritching in that way cats love so much.

"What I wouldn't give to be able to purr..."  Anevka's response to that was to lick Ric's 
nose once, then head back to the recliner she and her sister Chaylinn enjoyed lying on.

----

     "Be careful what you wish for...."

Waking up the morning of December 15th was just as difficult as any other day.  It was a
Friday...  A payday...  A day off...  He reached up to slap the snooze button on his alarm 
clock just 'one more time', when he noticed Anevka sitting on his chest, looking at him 
expectantly.  "Hey there, dear."  Anevka responded with a short meow.  Ric reached up to
pet the cat, then blinked a bit at what he saw.

His hand...  or more appropriately, his paw...  was jet-black.  He turned it over as Anevka,
being impatient as cats may be, nuzzled it.  He reached over for the small mirror he sometimes
used for shaving and brought it up before his face, almost sure of what he'd see.  When it was
verified, he rested his head back on his pillow....

....and chuckled.

The chuckle turned into a full fledged laugh.  The type of relieved laugh that you tend to emit
after a tense situation is overwith.  He was the mirror image of the anthropomorphic character 
he had wished himself to be so many times.  Streamlined head, black fur covering his face, 
muzzle and ears, save two stripes of gold that traveled from the inside of each eye to the
corners of his mouth.

He was finally feline.  It wasn't a shocking event...  It was almost like he felt it had to
happen someday, and that it had finally happened brought him to a point he had wished for
for years.  He picked up his cat in his arms and hugged her to his chest, purring back to
her for the first time, just as he'd always wanted to do.

Asking for a few days off work wasn't too terribly difficult, as he had a lot of vacation 
hours saved up.  He decided that he would head back 'home' for a few days.  

He'd finally found who he was supposed to be.

His mental barriers that had held back the floodgate of emotion for five full years tore
themselves down, and he spent the next few minutes alternating through joy, sorrow, regret...
everything that had been pent up inside all that time.

He wasn't sure who or what was responsible for his change, but he felt there was only one soul
at that moment who he felt that he needed to seek closure with.

----

     "...just the wrong self."

He paused for a few moments after the thunderbolt.

"I'm...  sorry, dad....  For not being there."

The rain began to mist across the graveyard as the cheetah knelt in the grass.  Another 
unseasonably warm December, just like the one five years ago.  

"I love you...  and I miss you."

He places a fresh bouquet of flowers arranged in a plastic vase designed to remain upright in
the ground just to the right of the small marble marker, then rises again to slowly disappear 
into the mists, and to begin his new life.

================================

)))))  Dedicated to Eric Hanson, 1953-1995 (((((