She Tried to Claw at The Wall

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.”

― Margaret Atwood, the Handmaid's Tale

The city was quiet. I suppose it always was. Food was scarce for an alley cat. People rarely flung their scraps my way; they looked at me with disdain, you see. I’m sure to them, I was a symbol of their deprivation. For in the rare moments that I got a glimpse of my reflection, I myself wanted to claw at the cat looking back at me. My hair was long and haggard, tufts were missing and replaced by unhealed wounds from brawls lost long ago. To them I was a reminder of their isolation that they would rather ignore, and so I’d mostly go hungry.

Pigeons usually sustained me. I didn’t care for the taste but many innocent pigeons flying from the West got caught in the chicken wire on high walls where only a cat could reach. In the end many of them begged me to end their suffering. So, I considered it an act of service on my part. Sometimes when I was feeling particularly resentful at my condition, I asked my prey about the West. Pigeons aren’t so intelligent to begin with, and definitively less so when impaled on wire, but they would give me fragments. Just small insights into the loud, colourful city, where fresh fish roamed the rivers and the warmth of a fire radiated in every home. They were only inklings of an alternate world, but I held on to them.

On the streets, whenever I would listen to the humans converse, I would rarely get glimpses of the West. It was only ever in hushed tones, when it was harder for me to hear, that they mentioned it. I would often spy on these two men, who regularly met in a long-abandoned apartment, I often resided in. I kept myself concealed of course; men could never truly be trusted. Yet I relished in their murmurings of the West. They’d often talk excitedly of a great red balloon. I assumed it was some form of liberty belonging to the West, but I was never sure. They always appeared fearful, watching over their shoulders nervously as they whispered. I wanted to tell them that the only eavesdropper around was me.

I had come to view the pair as a friendship of sorts, from afar anyway, but after a while they stopped visiting. I tried to search for them around neighbouring sites, but they had vanished, much like people did in this place.

Without my unknowing companions there, the deserted apartment was just that, empty. I began to hate the perpetual silence. So, I took to the streets once more in search of noise. Whenever I was alone like this in the city’s heart, I began to feel afraid. For He, often hunted here at night. I saw fear everywhere. It was in their eyes.

I saw it in the parents of a little Pioneer girl, forcibly smiling as she responded, ‘Always Prepared,’ before saluting. It was in the tears of a mother giving the final rations she had to her children, in the cries of those children hearing sonic booms.

I perched myself on a familiar windowsill, like I had so many times before. The window was veiled by a sheer curtain and ash had showered its exterior, I just barely made out the blurred image before me. I couldn’t see the woman anywhere, but I could see that the man was wearing twisted gold and silver cords on his shoulder straps, with five pointed stars. As he began to unbuckle his belt, I heard a painful cry. She was on the kitchen floor, her white tiles bathed red.

In my time observing humans this image always recurred. The Men standing, the women lying.

I wanted to help her, but He was watching me. Watching me, watching her. He was calm. He always did like seeing me afraid. He was in their kitchen, fur black as ash, watchful green eyes. He sauntered towards the window. His eyes darted across my body, analysing every scar. Every wound belonged to him. I was his favourite canvas and he only ever painted with red. Come inside, he whispered. I was a prisoner you see, not to Him but to fear.

I was prepared to succumb, like I always had before but when I unfixed my eyes from His, I saw hers. She was watching me through a veil of tears, but she wasn’t afraid. She was reverent, peaceful. She was far away from this place.

I brandished my claws and launched myself at the window. It startled Him. I liked seeing him afraid. It startled the General, too. He charged towards me, wielding his belt. But his strike clashed with the windowpane and hit not me but Him. Men could never truly trust themselves in their fury after all. He began to wail with sorrow. Dropping his belt, he solemnly stroked his beloved’s fur and carried his limp body into the night, leaving her behind. I looked upon her porcelain skin that had been cloaked with blood. She put out her wavering hands, and I tentatively accepted.

“I’m going to give you something that a dear friend gave me long ago, and I want you to hold on to it.” I purred deeply.

She unfastened the golden heart-shaped locket that was dangling on her neck. I lowered my head acceptingly as she draped it around me.

“This is the only thing I own in this world, and there’s no way in hell I’m letting that bastard get it when I’m gone.”

It was dusk. The cold air washed over me as I clawed my way up the pine and through the twisting branches. The Wall looked smaller from up there, everything did. I could hear men talking in the distance, but their presence no longer frightened me. I was ready. Others had done it before me, and now I would follow them. I ran down the branch and let it carry me until I was suspended in air, free.

But freedom didn’t last long. I would never make it to the West. The group of guards down below enjoyed using alley cats for target practice. They patted the young man on the back who took the winning shot and laughed as they cheered his name.

I was left hanging, defeated over the Wall, as the life drained from my being and their laughs echoed.

The faint tune of a man’s beautifully melancholic vocals radiated from beneath me. “O the same God that abandoned her. Has in turn abandoned me. Deep in the Desert of Despair. I wait at the Well of Misery.”

I let his coarse, gentle voice carry me to sleep. As I lifted my heavy head up to the clouds, I saw it. A perfect red balloon, dancing wildly to his melodic frustrations, perfectly peaceful and perfectly free.