Soullag

Weren’t we just cuddling a moment ago? Didn’t you just sleep curled up on my lap? Didn’t we just do our morning dance into the kitchen, remember? When you stormed ahead, tail raised high, calling like a flag: follow me!

Then, abruptly, you would stop and turn around, making sure I was right behind you. Startled, I would almost trip over you, swerve, dance around you, and we would thus, stopping-and-going, reach our destination.

There you would loudly order your breakfast, even though – or just because – you knew it was in preparation and would be right in front of you. Then you would throw yourself on it, enjoy it with the most beautiful smacking noises.

Weren’t you performing your after-breakfast ritual just a moment ago? Like clockwork, every morning, eating breaktfast, back to bed, grooming yourself with abandon, your infinitely soft fur so lush, and a bit too much to handle for just one tiny tongue.

Once done, you would trot to the litter box, in your inimitable gait, slowly, avoiding all unnecessary loops, passing right along the corner, brushing the wall, every now and then leaving little traces of fluff like as a marker…. They still hang there.

You’d be peering out of the hole of the litter box, your gaze fixed on some indefinable point in the distance, doing your business like a Zen monk. Then back to bed, on that same energy-saving trail, or to your favourite cushion in the living room, to rest.

Later, if you felt like it, you would follow me around, sit in the middle of the kitchen floor while I was cooking, undisturbed by my steps, no matter how close. Or, you might join me in my home office and position yourself right between me and my laptop, smartly ensuring permanent cuddling. Or, we would sit on the sofa together, watching a movie while you would be punching holes in my jeans as usual by accident.

With dinner time approaching, you would get all nervous and start fixating me with your beautiful eyes, as if scared to miss me preparing your dinner. Or, as if to hypnotize me into it. It worked, more often than not. Same with doors. You would stare at them, willing them to open. And they did, more often than not.

Didn’t you just now follow my evening call to bed, playing this game with me: Who sits first on the blanket? It was always you. Ready to settle down ever so gently, half on my arm, half on my shoulder, starting to purr into my ear. Soothing us both to sleep.

At night you would slowly take over more and more of the soft pillow you loved so much. Until all I had left was the last corner on the bottom right. You lay right in the middle of my, your, pillow like on a throne. I didn’t mind. I loved feeling the sweet weight and the soft breathing of this little body of yours right next to my head, in awe of the deep trust you put in me as your nightly companion.

They say that when you travel faster than your body can in a natural manner, by plane instead of by foot for example, then your soul can’t keep up. It will lag behind.

You were travelling too fast, little one. One moment you were here and well. The next moment we were at the vet‘s office every day, watching over your fitful sleep every night. Until the day came when we had to let you go.

My soul is still in that other place. You know, the one where all was well. The one where you were well. The one where you lay in my arms, where we danced into the kitchen, where you shared your pillow with me at night. Remember?

My soul is lagging behind.

I don’t know if I even want it to catch up. Remember.

Because then your new reality is mine, too.

me