By Melissa Fitzpatrick
The cougar in the attic says he just needs some time to figure things out. A quiet place to think, to decide what to do next. Where to go. How to start over.
I bring him extra blankets, but we both know that’s not what he needs.
This is no place for a cougar, I tell him. I don’t know why I tell him that. As if he doesn’t know where he does and doesn’t belong.
*
I tell the cougar to make himself at home. I show him how to work the TV. I tell him to help himself to whatever’s in the fridge. He doesn’t have to stay in the attic, I say. We could hang out. Maybe play a board game, if he’d like. But the cougar keeps to himself. Sometimes I almost forget he is there.
*
The cougar sleeps all day. At night, when he thinks I’m asleep, he comes down from the attic and paces. Like a ghost he drifts from room to room, his claws clacking lightly on the floorboards until morning.
*
The cougar in the attic says he’s forgotten the sky. He asks me again and again if I’m sure it’s still there. Every day, when I come home, I tell him about the sky. How today it was filled with fluffy clouds. Or the sunset today blazed crimson and gold. Or today the sky was a bright and infinite blue. He listens, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me.
*
I find clumps of the cougar’s fur in the hallway, under the couch, in the corners of the bedroom. There’s a bare spot on his flank. He licks and licks until the skin is raw.
*
The cougar in the attic has stopped eating. I bring him steaks, venison, bison, elk. I plead with him to take just one bite. I tell him I’ve found a place for him. A far-flung place. Beyond the reach of freeways and highways, beyond even the last country road. A wild place of rock and meadow and tree. A place where eagles soar on thermals. Where cottontails will cross his path and scurry into the brush. Where deer will suddenly look up from their grazing, bolt when they see him emerge from the grass. A vast, open place with room to roam. A place where the wind pushes the clouds across an endless sky.
Melissa Fitzpatrick lives in the Los Angeles area. Her work has appeared in CHEAP POP, Corvid Queen, Scrawl Place and Milk Candy Review. Connect on Twitter @mfitzwrites.
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