Chirrup
On the negative space that cats leave behind
Our most beautiful calico had the most inelegant voice. And she was somehow proud of this fact. She had a special greeting for me, a choreographed chirrup that began with a little twitch of her whole body; there followed a pawing at the air that finally led into a rusty double exhale that meant (probably), Oh hello there. You may continue.
Maz was tiny in stature and colossal in attitude, as befits a calico. She was my first child and my daughter’s first great loss: her absence necessitated the invention of star fields, of new constellations, of heavens we had abandoned to reason.
There arose mail routes that carried post by unicorns at midnight, marked by stamps of whimsy affixed with tears. I am still here, just further away, we would write back by way of the unicorns. Look out of the window in the early evening, and there I am, not what your father mistakenly calls Venus; I am the Mazzy Star. I will wander across the skies and be bright and watch over you.
This is the story we told our child about loss—but is it a lie when the loss at the heart of it is so true?
Perhaps belief is just lines of hope that converge at a vanishing point, so that a lost cat can become a star, so that a planet may substitute for that star, even if an ancient story must find anchorage in other harbours.
I do not know where Maz is; I only know where she isn’t. And that absence, that negative space that is still calico-shaped, is boundless. It is a boundlessness that nevertheless has form, and casts shadows.
Sometimes the shadows produce light, a sort of spectral phosphorescence from a void that is both magic and logic. How else would I have made a playlist for her that has string quartets and surf rock and ended up smiling?
The dead have always had access to higher-dimensional physics, and it is fitting that a cat should wield the most mischievous forms of them. She bats emotions onto my thoughts the way she did my wife’s earrings off the bureau.
Perhaps each memory is a chirrup of sorts, arriving when the self twitches and paws at the remembered space. Oh hello there. You may continue.
Oh man, this is beautiful and sad. (And made me sadder because it reminded me of the ascension of Dragonheart - that movie damn near broke my heart). May your daughter forever be able to look up at Mazzy Star with wonder and memory of her prescence.