Cat played the Fiddle

I never really loved anyone before Marsha. Honestly, I was a pretty selfish person until I stopped being a person. She couldn’t believe that a cat could read and write. I couldn’t believe her parents actually named her Marsha, but when you’re huddled under a collapsing cardboard box in the rain you don’t care what the person’s name is, that's putting a warm saucer of milk out for you. I wasn’t anyone’s pet but she was patient and eventually let me live in her apartment above the stationary shop that she worked at.

I could’ve had a really cool name from one of Marsha’s books but fearing I’d end up being called “Mr. Mistoffelees”, I picked up a pen in my mouth and clumsily wrote out my own name, Tom.

“Because you’re a tom cat, right?” she laughed. I stared at the ceiling ruefully while Marsha wrote up cards saying “yes” and “no” for me to point to and began asking me questions. After a while Marsha knew my expressions and I could make her laugh with a sarcastic flick of my tail alone.

I didn’t tell her much about becoming a cat, except that I was very good looking (she rolled her eyes at this for some reason) and there was some violin playing. I didn’t want to admit what a drunken egotistical lout I was. A virtuoso on violin, too good for Julliard, never mind that ego and a failed solo career had led me to playing under a bridge from a tent in moldy clothes accepting violin matches from grinning mad-men.

“Let’s have a little jam session shall we?” he grinned and pulled out a silver violin.

“Pshaw,” I slurred, holding up my sorry bow with bits of hair hanging limply. “I could teach you a thing or two!” I had trouble keeping up with him and he’d known it, grinning at me until I sliced my finger, issuing a sour note.

“You’re shit at violin, Boy,” he laughed. “You’d make a better mouse catcher!” He played quick sly chords. I lifted my bow angrily but it wouldn’t stay, not even when I extended my claws and my whiskers got caught in the strings.

I would wake up from nightmares of him with a hiss. Marsha would pet my head with a gentle “Hush, hush, I’ve got you.” Then she’d kiss me right between my green eyes. I knew didn’t have a chance with her as a cat, no matter how much I made her laugh or how many mice I caught in the shop but I savored those kisses.

I loved to stretch myself out on my section of counter, opposite the register, while Marsha took bits of colorful stationary and folded them into little cranes and unicorns for me to knock off. It was my second favorite place after Marsha’s lap. The bells over the door jiggled and in he came. Jack, Jack Fiddler. I’d been near black-out drunk when I’d met him but I recognized his smell immediately, oak moss and stale beer. His hair was wet and he wore some netting for a shirt, torn like his jeans, under a leather jacket. On his back was a silver violin.

Jack ran his hands through the rack of specialty papers that Marsha hung each morning with care. He grabbed a few leaving the rest of the rack a mess.

“Can I help you, sir?” Marsha asked. He threw her a wild grin as he grabbed a small pot of ink and knocked over novelty quills. My hackles rose as he sauntered up to the desk and dropped everything nearly on top of me. I almost fell off the counter.

Marsha rang up the items. He made a big show of checking his pockets and my stomach sank.

“I can hold the items for you for a day,” Marsha said, un-impressed. I snickered.

“Perhaps, another arrangement could be made?” Jack suggested, slipping his violin from his back. “I could play for…your customers.” He winked at me. “A bit of mood music, perhaps?”

I leapt at him, grabbing the bow in my mouth and sinking my claws into his flesh. He yelled and stumbled back.

Marsha screamed as we careened into a self of cards. Jack pulled my tail. I howled and sunk my claws into his face. He hit me with the violin sending me into a shelf of stationary sets. Everywhere hurt and I couldn’t move but I saw Marsha’s fuzzy outline ripping Jack’s violin from him and smashing it over his head. That’s my girl! She raced over to the shelf to check on her poor cat but apparently there was only a naked me passed out. When I came to, I was covered in a blanket and Jack was gone leaving nothing but splintered violin pieces which began crumbling into moss.

“Are you okay…Tom?” Marsha was sitting next to me looking like she’d seen a ghost.

“My head hurts,” I said as I put a hand on my head.

“You’re a…person,” Marsha said.

“Yeeees…didn’t I happen to mention that?”

Marsha looked pointedly down at me. “No, actually, you didn’t.”

“Well,” I shrugged ruefully. “I wasn’t very good at it.” One end of her mouth tugged into an involuntary smile. “But I’ll still catch mice for you…”

She didn’t say anything, she just placed a kiss right between my eyes and I placed one on her mouth.

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This story was originally part of the NYC Midnight Challenge. The Prompt was to write a Romance that takes place in a Stationery Shop and features a Violin.

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