Charly, the cat that prefers to stay in the shadows, is the most beautiful creature you could ever see. I don’t know how much of a wild cat this Charly will be. But I sense that I am inclined to trust my own instincts and let the alter ego vanish and become realistic. He has the look of a wild one, but his eye contact tell me that he is just a feline of the kinder ones. No harm to anybody.
I mean if you were to look at him, he has teeth, bendy paws that look like tiger wraths, no moustache but his frontals are like a bulls cheeks, his eye transform into red when strangers enter his personal space, and his wagging tail is so efficient and fast that it makes your eyes go dizzy. This is not some domesticated lazy cat. Far from it. I dare stare at it. I dare challenge anything it wants to do to me, or even the others. I see its first glimpse of paw just under Dr Tell’s chair as she is jotting down the diagnosis for my lung infection.
I keep looking down just under Dr Tell’s chair until she catches my eye but is unsure whether to say anything or not.
I noticed that too, but was unable to interrupt my fascination while staring at Charly.
I only know his name because there is a big, huge picture of Dr Tell and her cat hanging in a spanking gold encrusted frame in front of me, in her surgery room where most people, if they were to be here as they opened their eyes, they would contrast her surgery with a vet’s place.
It isn’t though.
I maintain constant look at the chair and just under between Dr Tell’s legs, under the seat where she continues to jot down the prescription.
Charly flirts with me, I see his eye, his one eye with a deep green and dirty colour. I believe that he smiled at me. For a big cat like him, I am actually surprised that he is scared of me.
I think he is.
Well he might not be! He might be just playing with me.
Having said that, I am trying to calm down because I had a super stressful day. The anticipation to know my blood test results and now Dr Tell’s prescription, can take their toll. I didn’t want to face my truth. My reality I suppose. I was way too scared to face the trial of Dr Tell. I remember a few years ago when Dr Tell was new, fresh face of the clinic, she was this ravishing young lady who was ready to take the challenge of bringing some energy and fresh blood in an area where average age of the residents wasn’t younger than fifty-eight. It stoned me how I perceived this young doctor. It stoned me because she had it all. Never misunderstood my likeness for her and I never pressed the wrong button.
My missus had died a few months earlier and I was a little bit vulnerable. I was too keen not to be seen and not to be understood as somebody who is tremoring below his feet and is about to give in.
I wanted to be seen as strong and easy going. So I asked her on a date a few months later. I wasn’t a stalker at all but I was keen to get her number.
I managed to get her number when I sneakily cancelled a pre-arranged appointment to see her. Last minute I rang the reception and told them that i wouldn’t be able to attend but I wouldn’t mind receiving a call back from the doctor a bit later. I offered my number.
They then rang me back and asked me if i could ring Dr Tell. I didn’t. I was waiting for them to ring me again just in case at the other end of the phone Dr Tell would appear with her gentle tone. But it never happened. I think I was going crazy. She rang me on my number and I was absolutely shocked. She just wanted to see if I was OK because, as she explained, it is very unusual for people to cancel their appointment at the last minite at this surgery.
I supppose Dr Tell was keen to keep her surgery stats intact and immaculate.
So calling a recently made widower in his mid fifties who had lost his ways, was slightly risky.
This was going in my head while we were talking on the phone and she was asking me questions. To be honest I wasn’t that focused. I was too distracted. That was it for a few days, or if I remember well, weeks.
Only later when I had a follow-up appointment did I discover that Dr Tell was seeing someone.
I was gutted. Unlucky I thought then. Nothing was the same since then.
A few years went by and the need to have a doctor’s appointment never appeared in my radar. Until last week when I had to do a few tests because I was coughing with a rough manner and one of the nurses recommended me that I see a doctor.
I had forgotten about Dr Tell until I saw her again. I smiled and she gave me a big smile too. She didn’t look any different at all. Even younger and more beautiful. She had forgotten about the past times, that she called me or that I had a huge crush on her.
This time round she had the chance to examine me well. I didn’t mind that at all.
It sent my imagination wild but I was not the same men I was then. She was not the woman she was then either. She was even more beautiful. I was more wrinklier and more downward peaking.
I continue to look at Charly and Dr Tell continued jotting. This must’ve been one of the longest prescription she had to write. I wondered. I started to get itchiness in my pinky. I then started to scratch my head while Charly for a minute or so disappeared. He really must love his owner. Would you blame him. I muttered whisperingly to myself, trying not to be heard.
This is it Mr Hall. She turns toward me and looks straight in my eye. You take these twice a day, the liquid will be for the time before you head te bed, the violet coloured pills are for the morning and this cream, you rub it in your chest every evening before bed.
Thank you. I said. Then she lifted the seat’s cover looking for Charly after she had given me another gentle smile.
I see my cat had been entertaining you! She said. With her eyes locked on me almost it felt like permanently. I smiled back but I unlocked my eyesight.
Definitely. I responded. She is a beautiful creature. My wife loves them and we have two of them at home and they are such an addition tom the family. Don’t ask. I don’t know why I said that.
I said to her that she has got a wonderful cat, a beautiful creature, a very flirty one though. She laughed and she started calling the cat. Celine, cutie where are you darling. Come say goodbye to Mr Hall.
Celine! I thought to myself. Why Celine when his name is Charly, because that’s what it says on the picture in her wall.
I begged myself not to ask more questions and just leave the lady alone. But I was way too curious and stubborn not to have asked that question.
Do you mind if I ask!? I said. Is your cat’s name Celine or Charly?
She smiled. She stopped, sat down and then looked me in the eye melancholically and said that she named or renamed Charly to Celine after her late husband had passed away in a motor accident, and that she needed his warmth to be kept alive and that Celine helps her get on in the day and crack on with her life.
Celine or Charly as he was called then, was bought as a present from Celine the man, on their last anniversary together.
I felt like I wanted to sob right there and then. I felt that heavens have landed on earth and that my pre-apocalyptic days might be over now. I refused living at that moment.
Some seek the truth by living in a world of lies and some others reside on top of a wrecking ball until they fall and get swept up by its swinging, and the rare ones are just gobsmackingly unlucky. I said to myself while I was biting tongue and turning red. Charly at that moment appeared. He stares at me as if to say what an unlucky man you are!
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