Point of View

A nice game to play is to get a creative writing text book and go through the exercises in it. Now I know that sounds boring, but it's not because it's challenging. Here's one:

Man's perspective:

I sit down at my table. It's only my table for a few minutes... maybe twenty, but it's mine in an important sense, in that it is a place for me to sit—a sought after place in the rush for lunchtime noodles.

I'm alone at my table and I notice a few weary looks from those still in line for a place of their own. However, I notice that I am not the only long character on the page of square linen table cloths. There is a woman who is also lunching solo. She has just ordered from the menu and she taps both her fingers on the table and her feet beneath her. Whatever she has ordered, she has eaten it before if her glances at the kitchen and utter destruction of her lip gloss counted as effective non-verbal communication.

Her plate arrives before I even place my order. She has creamy pasta with chicken and black mussel shells protruding in contrast to the alfredo.

My waiter is by my side and I point to the lady I've been observing. “I'll have what she's having,” I say briskly.

Soon, my plate also arrives and I wonder how I'll manage to devour even a third of it before my hour for lunch expires.

A clatter of dishes. I didn't see what happened, but when I looked again at the girl I'd copied, the entirety of her food was seeping messily into the carpet. The sheer horror inscribed on her features was very much like that of a child whose ice cream has taken a tragic dive. For a moment, I wonder if she will cry like that child, but her eyes meet mine and in a moment, that woman knew everything about me that she needed to know.

She sat across from me and with her dinner fork still in her hand she started helping herself to the noodles on the untouched part of my plate.

Barman's Perspective:

One regular and one newcomer sat alone at separate tables. Both ordered the same thing. The girl was so hungry, she lifted her plate to get it closer to her mouth as she struggled to shovel the food into her digestive tract as soon as possible. The weight of the plate was too much for her and her wrist gave way. It was a waste of perfectly good alfredo and a waste of a good chef's time and skills, but most of all it was a waste of that hard-working woman's money. But she was the type to find hope when it had all but run dry. She sat down and helped the shrimp with his meal. It was just as well. He wasn't have finished it anyway.

The Light Fixture's Perspective:

“Can you usually eat a full plate of this?” she asked before bringing another length of pasta to her lips.

“I've never had this before,” he admitted as he scooped a mussel free from its shell.

“I make this at home sometimes, but it never tastes as good. Something about it always falls flat.”

“It's the fat. You either aren't adding enough olive oil, or you aren't adding enough butter.”

She chewed slowly and thought about this recommendation. “I gained seven points since I started coming here three months ago. This is my favourite dish. How much butter do you think is in here?”

He glanced at her figure instead of the noodles. “You look fine to me,” he said. Any man might have said those words, but the way he said them made them a compliment.

It was clear she recognized it as one as she reached across to her abandoned table to retrieve her water glass. “I suddenly feel full. Maybe half a plate of pasta is more than enough. Perhaps we could share one again some time?”

“I dunno. You say you're full, but I feel like I could eat a second plate. Would you care to join me?”

The Predator of Sadness

There's this guy I know who can smell sadness. If you're unhappy, he can smell it. He comes into the room I'm in and he's got his nose in the air. He looks at me, sees me on the bed and moves toward me in his slow beat way. He rolls his shoulders when he walks and his eyes meet mine in this way that seeks the visual confirmation that his suspicion is correct. Personally, he's not into crying or sobbing and lives his entire life only uttering noise if there is no other option for communication. But he seems deeply attracted to sadness. If I'm unhappy, it's time for him to reap the rewards, cause if I'm sitting around sad, he's going to get pet.

In case it hasn't been terribly obvious. He's a cat.

He comes over like he's giving a teddy bear to a weeping child, except I'm a grown woman and he is the teddy bear, except better, because he's warm, his fur is a thousand times nicer than a toy, and he purrs. And while he's there with his adorable, mostly expressionless face, I'll forget the thing that is hurting me.

The lack of facial expression is key. He doesn't look like he needs attention. He's sitting there, but he's not needy. He doesn't look pathetic, but proud, because he's there to comfort you, not the other way around. He also doesn't look like he feels sorry for you. He doesn't. Holding him just sets your nervous system to rights. He doesn't know what's bothering you, but he is your little furry therapist who has been comforting you whether defeated or ill. He's been vanquishing your pests and licking his chops. Mine likes to maim insects that make it inside my house. A truly noble animal.

When I adopted him from the SPCA, I had to wait in line for hours. I was at the front of the line and this blonde woman showed up with her two blonde daughters. They wanted the kitten I was there to get. You see, three new medium-hair kittens had just come up for adoption that morning and I was going to get the pretty girl kitten who had these incredible white marks around her eyes, and one of her brothers. These females had jumped the line, and there were around 15 other people who had been queueing up behind me. But, it wasn't my first time adopting a cat. I walked in and scooped up the adoption papers for all three cats before she even knew what was happening.

So, I sat down and looked at their pictures and thought about what I was going to do. There was a black one with a white diamond on his collarbone (cats don't have collarbones, but you get the idea), a stripy girl and a stripy boy. The boy wasn't as cute, but I was going to get two of them and as I sat there, I decided that it would be better for the kittens if I took both the boys. So, I got up and gave the blonde woman and her two daughters the adoption papers for the adorable girl kitten with the beautiful eye markings.

When I was paying the bill for the two kittens, the woman at the till said to me, “That's a really special cat you have there.”

I was like, “The striped one?” Since I had come so close to leaving him for someone else.

“No, the black one.”

And I wondered what that meant. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her, “Does that mean he's going to die soon?” But I didn't, because I didn't think the SPCA would have adopted out a cat that was likely to drop dead.

Except that was what happened. That black cat was the cuddliest sweetie pie who ever was. I loved him in a way I had never loved anything, and when I left my house with him in my arms for the last time, I thought I had never felt the pain of loss that sharply ever before.

And I didn't know how me and my remaining stripy feline would get along together. But he is the predator of sadness and came over as if to say, “I'm patient, and I waited for this day, not knowing or caring if it would ever come. Now that it has come, I will be your cat and you will love only me.”

Okay, that seems super creepy when I read it back, but he has claws, fangs, slitted irises and a particular fondness for ripping the wings off things. But for me, he's a warm fluff ball with a heart of purr.