OFLUXO

Falling asleep is hard. It’s amazing it happens at all. As a kid I would sit in bed, wide awake in the middle of the night, alternating my gaze between the ceiling and the wall. I thought about anything and everything, cycling through an endless rolodex of anxieties and insecurities. During these sessions I was usually accompanied by the family cat, who was cozily cradled in the negative space created by my legs. The two of us would lay there for hours; one of us perfectly at peace and one of us reliving the day’s social anxieties and forecasting tomorrow’s worst-case scenarios. As the minutes marched forward, I watched her sleep and caught myself wondering how  came so easily to her. I couldn’t understand it. What secret knowledge was matted in between her fur and claws? I started to fantasize about how my life would be if I wasn’t human. If the night grew long enough, I even felt my joints shift while my pores opened large enough for strands of fur to break through. My pupils lost their roundness, becoming narrowed, as my body condensed, and a sharp tail splintered from the bottom of my spine.

In my new body I would have no worries, I would shed my ailments as easily as I shed my fur; leaving the evidence of my liberation as loose and wispy sigils all over the house. I could be small enough to hide, to not be found or paid attention unless I sought it out, and it was acceptable. I missed my hands at first but learned to appreciate the tactile simplifications granted by my paws. If it really came to it, I had the ability to be entirely self sufficient; hunting, feeding, grooming, housing…This house would do for now but there was a whole world to explore…but I don’t have time now because there are sun beams emerging in the kitchen. That warm yellow light revealed patterns in my fur I didn’t know were there. As I admired the shimmer across my body and traced the dust particles that danced in air before they landed on my whiskers, my eyelids became heavy…

If there was only a way to wear that cat mask, maybe just for pretend or maybe to help relieve the aches of my humanness for a while. It might help me understand to soften the edges of harsh truths, to let go of things out of my control. My new body would be a walking memorial to my cast aside negativity. The circular logic in which I was mired, coated in a newly formed translucent film, allowed me to admire the distinct shapes and patterns of my oncoming adolescence. Life moved so slowly, and if I were a cat I could’ve enjoyed it more.