She sits on a bench looking at nothing in particular. It’s dark and cold and she shivers as if she were close to tears and although she is, she pretends she’s not. It’s 2am. Some town. Some place. She exists in between, and although there are plenty of beds she could be sleeping in, there’s nowhere she can call home. There are guys who would make her feel alive, and yet none that could make her believe it was real. Here comes a cat. From beneath a parked car, it slyly approaches, and when it hops into the air, she clutches it in both of her arms and together they see out these hours the rest of the world will never know. The cat purrs and she rests her head against it, smiling then crying, and as if understanding the strange woman’s condition, the cat licks her fingers before nuzzling its nose against hers. How do I know this moment ever existed? She told me. Can’t remember when, and truth be told, for a long time it remained forgotten, and then just like that, it popped into my head the other afternoon when I was walking past the same spot on one of my tours of the town where she used to live. Standing there staring at the worn and weathered bench, I saw her as how she used to be and wondered to myself where she was now, and about the whereabouts of that cat that kept her company when she needed it most. Looking around, I saw no one, and the absence of life made the memories hurt that little bit more.

A Journal for Damned Lovers UK

A Journal for Damned Lovers US

Anthology UK / Anthology US