"Not My Cat"
by Osiris Brackhaus
There he was again.
His brush hovering motionlessly over the canvas, Viggo stared out of his studio window. Across the backyard, in a small flat right opposite his own, the young man living there had just opened his double-winged window, making small, cute sounds to tell his cat that he was home again.
Wonder where he was today, Viggo thought, still remaining motionlessly. He's back too early to have come from his academy. Maybe a casting? He looks just gorgeous.
Like countless times in the last month, the artist's thoughts
wandered along the little bits he had gathered about his handsome neighbor.
Orlando was his name, Orlando Bloom. And, although he was not too sure which,
he was either a dancer or an actor. Viggo personally favored the thought of
seeing him on the stage of a ballet, but he wouldn't mind seeing his angelic
face on the silver screen either. By now the artist had learned that Orlando
was at some kind of academy here in town, and one day he had overheard a conversation
where he announced to have been invited to an audition.
And, not to forget, the boy did his stretching at the open window.
Licking his lips at the memory of the lithely muscled body bending and contorting in the early morning light, Viggo put down the brush and lit a cigarette. The blissful moments he could watch his young neighbor were painstakingly few, and he was surely not going to waste one of them with something as easily taken up again as painting.
Across the yard, Orlando came back to the window, once more calling his cat. Apparently, the little panther hadn't reappeared yet. Taking off his slim sweater, the young man looked out of the window once again, then retreated into the dark shadows of his place, presumably to taking a shower.
Winter had been a surprisingly pleasant season this year, Viggo remembered with an evil grin. His neighbor had moved in somewhere in early November last year, and until now, hadn't put up anything like a curtain at his narrow bathroom window. Probably because no one had guessed it gave Viggo a first class view inside the room as long as the lights were on. Which was how he had noticed Orlando in the very first place.
As usual, Viggo felt bad for peeping at the youngster instead of having started hitting on him a long time ago. But there just seemed to be no chance to talk to him whenever they met. Always bouncing, lively, almost hectic the young man seemed, and in the few instances they had met in the hallway, Orlando had already long left the place when Viggo finally came up with the courage to say hello.
And he couldn't just walk over to his place, ring the doorbell and say something like "Hey, hello, I'm the guy watching you in the shower for eight months now, would you mind going on a date with me?", could he. And for greeting him as a new neighbor it was definitely too late by now.
So all there was left for Viggo was to admire him from afar, filled with melancholy and the frail hope that one day, there would be a chance for the two of them.
Viggo finished his cigarette and sure that Orlando wouldn't show up at his own, private stage anytime soon again, he turned back to his painting. At least, the boy kept him inspired, he thought with a fond smile. He had been painting like mad these last month, and though it had all been cocoa eyes and slender bodies and sunlight, big surprise at that, they were selling rather well for the first time in his career. Actually, it was the first time it seemed to him he had a career after all.
Viggo just wondered what would happen to his art if ever Orlando became a real muse to him...
----
Tomatoes.
He should really try to get this youngster out of his head and focus on the
problems of his real life, Viggo scolded himself silently. And right now,
his biggest problem was tomatoes. Or rather, the lack of them.
Turning back to the Turkish vendor at his vegetable stall, Viggo tried to make the man understand that he had no use for the standard tomatoes he was offering today, but desperately needed the long, firm ones he usually sold. They kept much longer than the normal ones, and that was a crucial prerequisite for survival in a household as badly organized as his.
But this apparently simple task was rendered almost impossible by two rather harmless facts: for one, the good vendor seemed to speak only a few broken sentences of each of the languages Viggo knew, and second, he had just spotted his handsome neighbor Orlando walking down the street. Right in his direction.
And it was so terribly hard to concentrate on the friendly
if somewhat un-understanding vendor if all single cells in Viggo's brain seemed
to scream that THIS was the moment he had been waiting for so long. It would
be so easy to say something like: 'Hi, you buy here as well?' or 'Hey, you're
my neighbor and we still haven't had the chance for a decent hello. I'm Viggo.'.
Just like that, all natural.
Viggo felt his palms break out in cold sweat. Gods, he thought, I won't get out a single word.
"Now you buy or not buy?", the vendor asked, slowly reaching the end of his meager patience.
"I - I..", Viggo stammered, thinking that he would have to hurry or else would miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance. But not hurry too much, or he would look like waiting for him.
The vendor single-handedly ended their conversation with a final grunt into his impressive mustache and turned towards his next customer. Still waiting for the right moment to turn around, Viggo stared at the assorted vegetable in front of him while trying to rub his hands dry on his jeans.
Then, finally, he decided that is was now or never, and turned around, only to find Orlando standing at one of the trees that lined this side of the street. He had his back towards the painter and apparently was pinning some sheet of paper on the trunk.
With all his courage, he walked up a few steps at the young
dancer, thinking hard of a good opener for their conversation. Then, suddenly,
Orlando turned around, looking right at Viggo's eyes and almost making his
heart stop beating.
The young man's eyes, dark as precious cocoa, so brown they almost seemed
to carry a trace of red, were puffed and teary, his usually beaming face calm
and sad as if there was no joy left in the world.
"Err... Hi", Viggo stammered in complete disregard of the hundred witty sentences he had thought of only a moment ago. But the other man's eyes didn't even show a trace of recognition, and as suddenly as Orlando had looked at him, his eyes were downcast again. Almost dodging away from Viggo, the young man continued to make his way down the street, carrying under his arm a small pile of papers similar to the one he had pinned to the tree.
For the first time looking at it, Viggo felt the intense urge to slap himself. 'Missing' was the first, handwritten word on the note, just above a grainy copy of a sleeping black cat on a light blanket. Gods, Viggo thought defeated, his cat's gone missing and I try to make witty conversation. Well, not really, but I was going to try.
Underneath the cat's photo, there was a telephone number written in the same neat hand. For a long, long moment, Viggo stared at the note, wondering what strange hint of fate this could be. Then, his tomatoes all forgotten, he snatched the paper off the tree and rushed back to his place.
Maybe this was the occasion he had been waiting for all this time.
----
So many cats. Viggo had never thought there were so countless many cats in the quarter. Sitting in his armchair at the open window, a cigarette in one hand, Orlando's note in the other, he stared at the colorful host of felines gleefully feasting on the assorted tuna cans on his windowsill.
Big cats, small cats, thin ones, white ones, red, brown, gray, striped, every kind of cats. But hard to believe as it sounds, not a single black one among them.
Silently, Viggo cursed at his naive decision to find Orlando's cat for him. He had spent a few hours on the phone calling various shelters. He had checked if the poor thing had maybe been run over, but no luck either. The blasted thing just seemed to have been swallowed by the earth.
So, he had resorted to his last hope - tuna. Viggo didn't know too much about cats, but if there was one eternal truth about them, it was that they all were fond of canned tuna. Immensely fond.
Which, given his recent widespread success with felines, kept on being the eternal truth about cats. He had also learned that not only cats, but also doves seemed to be overly fond of tuna. It just hadn't gotten him one step further with his handsome neighbor.
An insistent purr got Viggo out of his thoughts, and looking down, he found a black and white cat walking around his ankles. A rather awkwardly proportioned cat, and apparently able to stumble over its own feet. Raising an eyebrow, Viggo took up the small animal into his lap. Immediately, the young feline rolled into a purring ball, gently pawing at Viggo's fingers with no claws at all.
"You're a real sweetheart, you know that?", Viggo said fondly to his latest visitor. Gently scratching the animal between its ears, he added: "You'd make my Orlando smile again, would you? I bet you would."
Laughing softly, the painter watched as the cat took his fingers and started licking at them, its rough tongue scratching across his skin. "You probably taste all the tuna I've opened lately, do you?", he asked fondly. "I just hope there's not too much paint in between."
Looking alternately at the cat in his lap and at the paper in his hand, Viggo gave a deep sigh. "Such a shame you're the wrong color. Apart from that, you'd be just the right sweetie for him. And it's not as if I could just paint you black..."
Again staring at the note first and then at the cat and finally at his can of brushes on their shelf, an almost nefarious smile grew in Viggo's face.
"You'll be my all-time hero, little one, you know that? You'll be my hero."
----
With the cat in his arm and his heart pounding in his chest so loud it seemed to drown all other sounds of the city, Viggo rang his neighbor's doorbell.
"Shhh", he whispered cooingly as the animal was growing restless. "Just a few more moments. And be as sweet as you've been with me, and I promise you tuna all your life."
Apparently, the promise was good enough to buy him a few more moments of his cat's best behavior, and instead of nervously pawing at his face, it started to clumsily chew on his sweater instead.
Then, after what seemed a small eternity, the door was opened from the inside. Orlando, wearing work-out trousers and a sleeveless shirt, looking as breathtaking as Viggo had seen him in his wildest dreams, politely smiled at them, asking:
"Yes please?"
Suddenly, all words in Viggo's head were gone. So, instead of saying anything at all, he just pressed the cat into the young man's arms.
"Here." Viggo brought out finally. "I've found your cat."
"But - no." Laughing with irritation, Orlando looked at the black and white feline in his arm that curiously sniffed at his throat. "This is not my cat..."
"But - of course. You've put missing notes all over the town..." Viggo said, finally remembering one of the lines he had been thinking of earlier. He started to search his pockets for the note he had taken with him, watching with a certain envy that the cat was beginning to playfully lick Orlando's throat.
The young man couldn't help but notice how outrageously cuddly the cat he had been presented with was, and almost despite himself, started smiling fondly at the animal.
"Here." Finally, Viggo had gotten the note out of his pocket. Unfolding the paper, he looked at Orlando with the most innocent face he could come up with.
Speechless with surprise, the young man stared at his old note, the black cat on the photo having been obviously edited with splotches of almost dry white paint that made the animal look precisely like the one he was holding in his arms right now. Giving a startled laugh, he looked at Viggo, then at the cat, then at the note and finally at Viggo again. Shaking his head, he said:
"You're my neighbor, aren't you?"
Viggo nodded silently, thanking god that his little gamble hadn't been too courageous.
"Won't you come in, for a coffee maybe?" Looking at the cat in his arms that seriously was preparing for a little nap there, he added with a fond smile that wasn't necessarily directed at the feline: "After all, you've found my cat."
"I - sure. I would love to."
So when Orlando stepped aside, the painter walked in, knowing that there was a certain little cat he owed a few tons of tuna by now. Closing the door, the young man followed Viggo, smiling.
"Actually", Orlando said in a voice that was just a tiny bit too innocent to sound credible, "have you ever realized I can look right into your bathroom from my kitchen?"
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to: Osiris Brackhaus