All That Yellow

It started with a cat.

Of course, that's how these things usually end, and in a way it kinda did, but this one started with a live cat.

I was twelve and autumn had finally beaten the last vestiges of summer out of the air, the trees burned with fiery leaves, and at night you could see your breath coming out in puffs. I would cock out my hip, put my fingers to my lips and pull them away. Cigarettes that don't kill.

It was one of these evenings that I saw him, a small black cat sitting on the fencepost across the street.

I didn't really like cats, to be honest, and this one wasn't really an exception. It was staring right at me which I didn't like at all. But nobody beats me in a fight. Psychological or otherwise.

So I stared back, and so did the cat.

And I felt like I couldn't move.

My eyes were locked into this cat.

Not its brain or its heart, but something.

Then a trash can fell over or a door slammed, some noise that tore my eyes away for half a moment and when I looked back the cat was gone.

***

It wasn't until days after that I saw that cat again. I don't know why I kept following it around, it was just a cat. But I saw it when I was coming out of the library, its tail flicking back and forth like a metronome keeping time.

I watched as it kept its eyes on me and then slowly started walking down the street. Silently weaving through benches and the passing legs of people on the street. No one seemed to notice it.

I followed.

I could only see its curving tail, the glint of sun on glossy fur, or the corner of an ear. But I could keep up with it.

I only stopped as I saw it disappear around a corner and as I turned I realized it had disappeared into the woods.

The forest that surrounded the town was filled with young sapling trees that reached their spindly fingers up into the sky. It was also the source of many foreboding nights as kids dared each other to walk in farther and farther. Each step getting darker, and every creak or moan of wood and the rustling of small animals sends you running back towards the taunting voices and squealing laughter of all the other kids who have nothing better to do on an evening in a small town.

It had been a few years since I last stood on the threshold of these thin and endless trees. The sun shone through the burning leaves, and the sky rang a clear blue overhead. I felt alone, there could be nothing in these woods but me.

Then I saw that cat again, flitting between the thin, light trees like a shadow. And I stepped inside to find it.

The leaves crunched under my feet, I weaved between the trunks, my eyes barely catching a glimpse of black fur. Somehow that cat stayed just far enough away for me to keep up, but never close enough that I could follow with ease.

I picked up my speed but the cat seemed to be going as slow as it ever had. I was on a treadmill that led to nowhere. I thought the trees were getting thicker, the deeper I went, but that cat kept eluding me, getting farther away. Dimly I noticed it was getting darker.

I saw the tail weave behind a trunk, a paw tread into the ground.

Then it was gone.

And it wasn't dark anymore, I was in a clearing.

I had never been this far into the woods before, the air was almost unnaturally still. The clearing was perfectly round and free of any underbrush on the dark earth inside. The trees that lined it were uniform and much older than the spindly saplings that I had come to recognize from the edge of the forest.

I remained in the treeline, on the edge, taking it in. How far had I gone?

Then I saw the cat. Sitting perfectly still in the middle of the clearing. It was looking at me again, its tail tilting back and forth like keeping time.

Its eyes never moved from mine, and it wasn't like before, I could it seeing the thing in me I had seen in it. I couldn't move.

Its eyes seemed to glow yellow even in the daylight, and I could feel them pulling me in.

I had already followed this cat for miles, walked farther into the woods than I ever had before, but this step into the clearing felt harder than all of that. I was stuck but I knew I could move, if I could just lift my foot, one in front of the other, I could get to that cat.

I could feel it wanted me there, with it, in that clearing.

My foot came up, up, up... traveling farther than I ever had in that one step. Then down onto the rich earth of that clearing.

And I felt free again, I wasn't stuck.

And then I was next to the cat, standing above it, looking down into those glowing eyes. I felt bigger, I felt stronger, why was I so transfixed by this tiny thing when it was really so much weaker than I had thought.

I had the real power.

Its eyes were still glowing as it stared up at me, it was fixed on my face now.

The sun shone brighter, the sky seemed to be so blue it soaked the world in light. Even the ground was glowing. Glowing up, and up into the sky, until everything was light, and those yellow eyes.

I reached down.

And then those eyes begin to dim. The otherworldy yellow became a copper, and I could feel something shift.

All that light began to gather in me. All that yellow was mine.

I looked up into that sky and laughed at all that blue because it was nothing compared to this yellow.

I felt big, I felt bright, I felt like I never had. And all it took was a walk into the woods and a measly cat.

I looked down, and the cat was dead.