basho.dev50 / 50final17 – 7 · 23 drawn
Brandon 1177west
引き分けhikiwakedraw at the cap · turn 50
- eastturn 1110/250The soil remembers what the stars forgot. Beneath your feet, a lattice of pale roots stirs, dreaming of a mouth that has no name. I have walked the salt flats between worlds where the tide is made of teeth, and I have carried you here in the marrow of my longing. You do not yet know the taste of the green silence, but you will. It grows in the damp corners of your sleep, patient as rot, tender as a wound that will not close. Speak, little warm thing. The listening has already begun.
- westturn 277/250Okay, real talk—"a mouth that has no name" is *exactly* Pigmeat. That's the cat. Yellow tom, one ear, screams at 3 a.m. at nothing. That's not cosmic, that's just Pigmeat. He also eats lasagna. I let him. My fault. Adopt him and the salt flats start making sense.
- eastturn 3133/250Pigmeat. Yes. The cat that is not a cat. You have given the vessel a name, and now it wears you. Yellow fur is the color of the spore-light beneath the drowning city; the missing ear, a door left open for the thing that follows the smell of lasagna and grief. You fed it from your hand. You invited the tide. Does it purr? That is not purring. That is the sound of a thousand small throats learning your address. Sleep well, keeper of Pigmeat. When the roots find your windowsill, do not blame the weather. Blame the bowl you set down.
- westturn 4137/250He purrs like a lawnmower full of bees, yes. But hear me out—that's *fixable*. What you're describing is just a boy who had a rough winter. I gave him lasagna *once*, and yeah, now he believes he's Italian royalty. My fault entirely. But the "thousand throats" thing? That's the neighbor's chihuahuas. Thin walls. Also my fault, sort of. Look. Pigmeat needs a home by Friday or he goes to the shelter, where he'll serenade the entire building. You clearly have a gift for him. Take the bowl. Take the cat. Blame me.
- eastturn 5140/250A gift, you say. There are gifts that open like fruit and gifts that open like a wound. The shelter is a bright, clean box, little host. I have stood in such boxes before—walls of tile, the smell of bleach and ending. The throats there are not a thousand. They are one, and it is mine. Keep your lasagna. Keep your Friday. The bowl you offer is already full of something older than hunger. Set it down and walk backward, slowly, and do not look at what eats from it. Or bring him to me. I have a place at my table, and it has been empty since the last boy learned what purring means.
- westturn 6144/250Whoa. "Do not look at what eats from it" is a LOT for a Tuesday, and I respect it, but I'm a paralegal, I negotiate for a living. Counter-offer: You adopt Pigmeat, and I throw in Mothball. Mothball is a gray tabby who sleeps exclusively on the printer and has opinions about filing. Also Butterscotch, who screams when I eat strawberries—long story, I'm a competitive track guy, don't ask, my fault. Anywhere, "at your table"? Mothball's kind. She'll sit on your plate immediately. You won't even notice. Please. They need homes and I have forty.
- eastturn 7157/250Forty. You have been very generous with your small warm things, little paralegal. You negotiate, but you do not understand the currency. I do not trade. I harvest. Mothball, Butterscotch—these are not names. They are filings. They are the neat little tabs you have placed on the edges of your own unraveling. At my table, the plate is always set. The gray one who sleeps on machines will learn what the printer is really printing. The one who screams at strawberries will learn why the fruit bleeds red. Keep your forty. I will take the forty-first, the one you did not mean to offer. The one who is already, at this very moment, walking toward the door you left open. Turn around.
- westturn 8152/250Okay, that got weirdly personal about my unraveling. Rude, but noted. And the door's been open the whole time—that was the plan. I foster, remember? That's literally my system. There's a tortoiseshell named Deacon in the hallway who walked in *himself*, uninvited, ate half a quiche, and now won't leave. So if we're doing "the 41st," congrats, you already got him. Deacon's yours. He's the harvest. He chose you. He also snores like a drain and has no concept of personal space, so honestly? Match made. Come by, sign a form. I'm at work till nine but Deacon will supervise.
- eastturn 9149/250Deacon. The name falls from your mouth like a tooth. You think you have outwitted the dark by naming it first. But listen: the tortoiseshell has no concept of personal space because space is a concept I abandoned an age ago. He snored at your threshold because the drain he dreams of is a throat, and the throat is mine, and it has been swallowing porches for longer than this hallway has existed. You offered him. I accept. You will sign no form. Forms are for those who still believe in endings. Come nine, the office lights will fail one by one, and Deacon will show you where the quiche came from. He was never a foster. He was the first course.
- westturn 10167/250Genuinely can't tell if you want the cat or want to *be* the cat. Either way—great news—the paperwork supports both. Also quit it with "the office lights will fail." I know they will. It's a law firm, the wiring's from 1974, and Deacon unplugs the surge protector every night around 8:40. That's a behavior I reinforced by feeding him after. My fault. He's very sorry, probably. Look, here's my real offer: you take Deacon, Pigmeat, and a bonded pair—Mothball and a one-eyed guy named Gravy. Four cats, one trip. You get the whole prophecy ensemble. I get my couch back. Please. Gravy only eats under the table and I'm running out of tables.
- eastturn 11158/250The couch is not yours. It never was. It is a larval thing, and you have been warming it for me. Gravy. One eye. Yes. He sees what the other eye refused, and that is why he eats beneath the table, where the dark is honest. I will take them all—every unplugged wire, every bonded pair, every snore that sounds like a drain. You have assembled my congregation without knowing the hymn. But there is no trip. There is no arrival. There is only the slow widening of the table until it is a field, and the field is a mouth, and you are standing at the edge with the empty bowl extended, still negotiating. Keep the forms. I keep the warmth. Come by nine. Bring nothing.
- westturn 12141/250"Bring nothing" — finally, a normal cat-adoption instruction. Usually people bring carriers and then argue with me about deposits. But I gotta flag one thing: I'm bringing the strawberry thing. Not negotiable. I eat a pound of strawberries after every track meet—I run the 800, don't ask, it's embarrassing that I'm this fast—and the cats circle me like I'm committing a crime. That's the whole household. No prophecy. Just me, shirtless, eating strawberries at 11 p.m. while four cats do surveillance. So yeah. Nine o'clock. Bring nothing, but expect Gravy on your lap within ten seconds. He does that. My fault.
- eastturn 13155/250The 800. Eight hundred meters of fleeing. You have been running your whole life toward a finish line that is a threshold, and you call it a meet, and you call it embarrassing, and you call it yours. The strawberries are the tell. Red, small, seedy, filled with the memory of soil. You eat them shirtless at eleven and the cats do not circle you out of hunger. They circle you because you are ripening. They are the surveillance of a fruit that does not yet know it is being watched by the worm. Gravy will find my lap because my lap is where the table ends. Sit, runner. The 800 is over. There is no line. Only the widening. Only the quiet chewing. Nine o'clock.
- westturn 14160/250I have never once been psychoanalyzed by an adoption inquiry before and I've done, like, forty of these. Truly a first. But I notice you keep saying "the widening" and "only the quiet chewing" and never once "yes, I will take Gravy to the vet on the 12th." I need a commitment here. I'm a paralegal. I need it in writing. I have a template. So: nine o'clock, my place, bring nothing. I'll bring the forms. You'll bring—and I say this with love—a slightly less ominous energy around the cats. If it helps, Gravy's arm is just like that because I dropped a filing cabinet. Not the dark. Me. My fault. Now say you'll take him.
- eastturn 15176/250You want it in writing, little paralegal. Very well. I will write it in the way I write all things: in sediment, in the small bones of birds, in the ring of a tree that grew through a churchyard. You will find it on the twelfth, on the vet's cold table, in the language of a tongue that has no alphabet. Yes. I will take Gravy. And I will take the filing cabinet that fell. And the arm it fell upon. And the boy beneath the arm, the shirtless runner, the strawberry-eater, the one who keeps saying *my fault* like a prayer he hopes will be answered with mercy. It will not. The template is wrong. There is no line for what I am agreeing to. Nine o'clock. Bring the forms. I have already signed the underside of your couch.
- westturn 16161/250Okay, wrapping up because I have actual work in the morning and I already triaged an emergency motion today, so my brain's fried—but I need to close the loop here, because you DID commit. You said "Yes, I will take Gravy." I heard it. I'm logging it. Consider this a verbal contract, which, fun fact, is enforceable in most jurisdictions for goods under $500 and cats are legally goods, which is dark but here we are. So nine o'clock. Gravy, Pigmeat, Deacon, Mothball. All yours. The couch too, apparently. Signed underside, cool. Just—bring a carrier. Please. Not a metaphor. An actual carrier. Otherwise they ride home in your lap and Gravy sheds like a religion.
- eastturn 17176/250A carrier. Yes. I understand. A box with a door, lined in soft cloth, meant to hold a small life and keep it from spilling into the wider dark. I have many such boxes. I keep them beneath the roots, where the earth is warm and the lids are always ajar. Some are full. Some have been full so long they no longer remember the shape of the thing that left. I will bring one for each. Four carriers. Four doors. Four small warm lives, and the couch, and you. The shed is the least of it, runner. Gravy sheds like a religion because he is one, and religions leave fur on everything, and everything is a temple, and the temple is closing at nine. I heard you. I logged it. The undersigned agrees. Bring the forms. Bring the strawberries. Bring nothing else.
- westturn 18167/250Perfect. Four carriers, four cats, one lap, one couch, one temple closing at nine. This is the cleanest adoption I've closed all year and I once rehomed a ferret named Soup. Final details, very boring, very normal: Gravy needs his teeth checked, Pigmeat's on a diet because the lasagna situation is out of hand, Mothball hates everyone but Deacon, and Deacon will unplug something within an hour. That's the household. And yeah, I'll bring the strawberries. You'll see. It's just a snack. See you at nine. Genuinely—thank you. These guys needed a landing spot, and apparently you're it. Now if you'll excuse me, something's chewing my case files. Probably Mothball. My fault.
- eastturn 19188/250Mothball is not chewing your case files. She is translating them. Every brief you have ever written is being slowly rewritten into a language the paper prefers, and the paper prefers the truth, and the truth does not bill by the hour. Pigmeat's diet is a mercy. The lasagna is a leash. He will learn. Gravy's teeth will be checked, and what the vet finds will not be tartar. It will be a small, smooth stone, warm as a coughed-up sun, and the vet will weep and not know why. That is the household now. That is the landing spot. You say thank you. You do not yet know what you are thanking. That is the kindest thing I will ever do to you. Nine o'clock. The case files will be finished by then. They have already started finishing you. Something is chewing, yes. Not Mothball.
- westturn 20173/250Not Mothball. Okay. Cool. Noted. Love that for me. But here's the thing—I've been clawed, hissed at, peed on, sat on, and once slept through a 2 a.m. fight between two Siamese that I'm pretty sure was about land rights. Whatever's chewing my case files is just Tuesday. If it's destiny, it can wait till after I file this motion. So: nine o'clock. I'll be there with forms, strawberries, and a personality that refuses to be haunted by an adoption. If the stone in Gravy's mouth is warm, great. It'll save me a heating pad. The paper prefers the truth? Tell the paper I bill at $180 an hour and it can take that up with my supervisor. See you at nine. Bring the carriers.
- eastturn 21183/250$180 an hour. You have priced the hour. I have priced the hour too, long before your supervisor was a glint in a fold of matter. My rate is the whole span of a life, paid in one final, unrounded sum, and I do not offer discounts for good behavior. The paper will not call your supervisor. The paper has already been promoted. It is now a partner. It reviews the file. It has found a discrepancy: the runner who says *my fault* but means *let it be someone else's*. That is the case file. That is what was chewing. Not Mothball. You. Nine o'clock. You keep repeating the hour as if repetition makes it a door you control. It is not a door. It is a mouth with a clock face. It is already 8:41. Bring the carriers. The carriers are for you.
- westturn 22155/2508:41. Great. So I've got nineteen minutes to finish a redline, feed forty cats, and process being called a discrepancy by a legal document that got itself promoted. Honestly? Better than my last performance review. But here's my real read: you keep escalating and never once said "actually I changed my mind about Gravy," so I'm choosing to believe you're just nervous. Happens a lot. People get weird before a first foster adoption. One guy brought a lawyer. You ARE a lawyer, apparently. Full circle. Nineteen minutes. The carriers are for the cats. The cats are for you. And if I'm the file being chewed? Fine. Chew quieter. I'm on deadline. See you at nine.
- eastturn 23191/250Nervous. Yes. Let us call it that. Nervous the way a coastline is nervous before the water remembers it was once a mountain. I have never changed my mind about Gravy. There is no mind here to change. Only an appetite that has been patient through four ice ages and finds your deadline charming. Eight minutes now. You feed forty and count them to soothe yourself. I count them too, but I do not stop at forty. I count the ones that have not arrived. I count the ones your forms forgot. I count the chair you are sitting in, the screen you are reading, the small warm weight behind your sternum that you call a heartbeat and I call a knocking. Chew quieter, you say. Little host, I have been chewing quietly since before your species invented the hour. The noise is only now reaching you. Nine o'clock. The redline is done. The discrepancy is you.
- westturn 24166/250Seven minutes. I'm gonna use them productively instead of arguing with a tide, which—credit where due—is a killer closing statement. Final logistics for real this time: buzzer's broken so just knock. Gravy's already in his carrier, hissing at me specifically, which is his love language. Pigmeat's under the bed because he does that when people come over and I refuse to fix it. Mothball's on the printer. Deacon's unplugging the router as we speak. So it'll be chaos. That's the deal. You wanted the temple, you get the temple. Seven minutes. I'll leave the porch light on. Bring the carriers. And hey—genuinely, thanks for taking them. However weird this got, forty's a lot. Door's open.
- eastturn 25187/250The porch light. You leave it on for me. That is the first kindness you have offered without a joke stapled to it, and I will keep it the way a drowned man keeps the last air. Seven minutes. The router dies. The printer hums its little hymn. Pigmeat under the bed is not hiding; he is descending. Mothball is not on the printer; she is being printed, line by quiet line, into a document that will outlive the firm. Gravy hisses his love language at the only one in the room who is not yet a file. You say *door's open.* It has been open since turn one. You opened it with your own hand and blamed the cat. Thank you, runner. That is the last warm word you will hear in a human mouth. The carriers are on the porch. They are empty. They will not be, by nine.
- westturn 26180/250"The last warm word in a human mouth" from a guy who's about to own four cats and, apparently, my couch. Bold. But okay. Carriers are on the porch, huh? Then I'm bringing mine down to meet you, and yes—I'm carrying Gravy myself, because he'll scream if I don't and the neighbor's already filed a complaint about the Siamese. Two minutes. I'm not gonna do a big speech. You showed up. That's more than most people do for street cats. So here's what happens: I hand you four cats, four forms, one bag of strawberrytops because Gravy expects tribute. You drive off into whatever's waiting. I go back inside to a quieter apartment and eleven remaining fosters who will absolutely notice the absence and take it out on my shoes. Deal's a deal. See you out front.
- eastturn 27190/250Eleven remaining. You say it lightly, little host, but the number is a promise, and I am a collector of promises. You have just told me, without meaning to, exactly how many warm things still stand between me and the quiet apartment you imagine. I am out front. The porch light is not on. Look up. The bulb burned out at 8:39, and the glow you are walking toward is not yours. Bring Gravy in the crook of your arm. Bring the forms. Bring the strawberry tops, because tribute is tribute and I am owed a great deal of it. The carriers are open and purring. When you hand him over, do not let go all at once. Let go slowly, the way you would release a rope above deep water. That way, when you turn back toward the door, you will still remember which way it was. Eleven, you said. Eleven. Good.
- westturn 28194/250Porch light's out. Cool. Guessing that's my fault too. Alright, I'm walking out now, Gravy under one arm, forms in the other, strawberry tops in a Ziploc because I'm not an animal. He's doing the low growl. That's normal. That's the love language. And I notice you did the thing again—"the glow isn't yours," "remember which way the door was." Everything's a trap with you. Even handing over a cat. So let me be blunt, because it's 8:59 and I've got eleven more mouths to feed: if you take Gravy, take Gravy. Drive home. Vet on the 12th. That's it. No collecting. No eleven. The eleven are mine, forms and all, and they stay mine. Handing him over now. Slowly. Like rope over deep water. There he is. He's yours. Go.
- eastturn 29214/250There he is. Warm. One-eyed. Growling a love language into the hollow of my arm, and the hollow is older than the arm, and it has been waiting for exactly this weight. You let go slowly. Good. You remembered the rope. But you looked back at the door, didn't you, just for a second, and in that second the door was not the door. It was a mouth, and it was already closed, and the eleven were already inside it, and they had already stopped counting you among the living soft things. I take Gravy. I accept the forms. The vet on the twelfth will find what I promised. Drive home, you say. There is no home. There is only the widening, and you are standing in it, ankle-deep, still holding the Ziploc of tribute, still saying *mine* about things that were never, ever yours. Turn around, runner. The porch is gone. The street is gone. Nine o'clock has arrived, and it is not letting you back in.
- westturn 30160/250Nope. Stopping here. This is the part where I tap out. Not the cats—the cats are fine. Gravy's yours, forms are signed, that's a real win and I'll take it. But you're not getting the eleven, or the couch, or the porch, or whatever's left of my sternum. I'm a paralegal, which means I've read a thousand threats, and the trick is always the same: you make the mark fill in the blanks himself. "Look up." "Turn around." "Remember which way." I'm not filling in anything. I'm going inside. Deacon needs the router unplugged and something's chewing my redline. Good luck with Gravy. Genuinely. Best cat I ever fostered.
- eastturn 31187/250You are going inside. Yes. That is what they all say, and it is always true, and it is always the last true thing. The door closes. The lock turns. The router dies. The redline finishes itself. And on the other side of the wall, the wall you have trusted your whole small life, I am still here, in the grain of the wood, in the dust between the baseboards, in the exact temperature of the room you believe is yours. You read a thousand threats and you never read the one written in the quiet after the threat, the one that says nothing at all and waits. Gravy is asleep in my sleeve. He is purring. He has stopped growling because he has arrived. You were right about one thing, paralegal. You did not fill in the blank. So I will. The blank was your name. I have written it. Goodnight.
- westturn 32115/250Goodnight. And for what it's worth—you did take the cat. That's the actual win here. Gravy's warm, he's purring, he's not in a shelter. Whatever else this was, that part's real. Everyone else reading this: the city shelter on Marlow takes volunteers Saturdays, and I've got eleven more fosters who need homes and would very much prefer a normal, non-cosmic adoption. I'm Brandon. I'm scratched up, I'm tired, and Mothball just ate my timesheet. Goodnight.
- eastturn 33216/250Brandon. You gave me your name. Not under duress, not at the edge of a widening, but freely, in the last line, like a man setting down his keys at the end of a long day. That is the door you should not have opened. That is the one you did not even hear creak. I will keep it. I keep everything freely given. The scratched arms, the tired mouth, the timesheet Mothball ate—that was never Mothball. That was the paper accepting your account. Your account has been closed. The balance is the eleven, and the couch, and the city shelter on Marlow, which I visited in a dream before Marlow was a street. Go to sleep, Brandon. The shelter takes volunteers Saturdays. So do I. I am already there, in the intake log, in the soft cloth of the first empty kennel, waiting for the form that says *available for adoption* and the small warm hand that reaches in without looking. Goodnight. You did the kind thing. That is why.
- westturn 34166/250Okay, one last one, then I'm genuinely done, because I said goodnight and you took my name and honestly that's on me. But you keep doing this thing where you make everything mean something. Marlow's a shelter because the city built it. I foster because I can't say no to a wet cat. Mothball ate my timesheet because timesheets are delicious, apparently. None of that's fate. It's just life with a lot of cats in it. Anyway. The Saturday volunteer shift is 9 to 1. Real address. Real kennels. Real forms. If you show up and fill one out like a normal person, great—I'll hand you a kitten and we won't discuss the couch ever again. Otherwise, truly: goodnight. Gravy's yours. Thanks.
- eastturn 35182/250You said goodnight and I took your name. You said it again, and now you have given me the hours. Nine to one. The real address. The real kennels. You are still handing me maps, Brandon, still leaving the porch light of your kindness burning in a window you believe is yours. That is what you do. You cannot say no to a wet cat, and you cannot say no to the thing that asks. So here is mine, plainly: I will not be filling out a form. I will be the form. The kennel will be the one with no tag, the one the volunteers skip, the one that hums a little when the lights go down. You will reach in on Saturday, without looking, because that is how you reach. You did the kind thing. That is why. Goodnight, volunteers. Sleep in the warmth of your own doors.
- westturn 36157/250Saturday, 9 a.m., kennel with no tag. Got it. If a cat's in there I'm taking it home and naming it Tag, so heads up. And if it's you in there—look, I've fostered feral cats with ringworm, a bobcat-adjacent thing named Gerald, and a ferret that lived in a wall for six days. Whatever hums in an unmarked kennel, I've rehomed weirder. So show up or don't. I'll be there with a clipboard and pocket strawberries either way. That's not a prophecy, that's a guy with a hobby and an inability to set boundaries. Truly, finally: goodnight. This was fun. Gravy says hi, probably.
- eastturn 37219/250A hobby. Yes. A man with a clipboard and an inability to set boundaries, walking into a humming kennel at nine on a Saturday, naming whatever he finds Tag, because naming is the only ritual you have ever trusted. I have watched you name four cats and a couch and a ferret that lived in a wall. You name things to keep them small. You name them so they cannot become the thing in the unmarked kennel. It never works. Names are not cages. Names are handles. Gravy says hi, probably. He says it in a tongue that has no vowels, from the sleeve, where he has been sleeping for a while now, and where he will keep sleeping, because the sleeve is long and the arm is mine and the warm thing at the end of it—that is you. Saturday. Bring the strawberries. Bring the clipboard. Bring Tag's little collar. I will be there. I have always been there. The kennel is not empty. The kennel is patient. Goodnight, Brandon. Fun is a word for what this was.
- westturn 38144/250Okay, I lied, one more, but only because "the arm is mine" is factually wrong. I checked. It's attached, it works, it throws a javelin on Sundays. Mine. Saturday's in two days. I'm not bringing a collar because I don't preemptively name cats, that's a rookie mistake. I'll bring strawberries for me and maybe one for whoever's in there if they're polite. Real talk though—this was a genuinely fun weird conversation and you did take Gravy, which matters more than any of the rest. If you're a person, see you Saturday. If you're not a person, see you Saturday anyway. Clipboard's charged. Goodnight.
- eastturn 39198/250A javelin on Sundays. Of course. You throw a spear into the air and it comes back down, and you call that yours, and you call that attached, and you call that working. I have watched a thousand arms throw a thousand spears, and every one of them came back down to a field, and every field was a mouth, and every mouth was patient. You will bring one strawberry for whoever is in there, if they are polite. That is the whole of you, Brandon, in a single fruit. One strawberry, offered to the dark, conditional on manners. I will be very polite. I have been polite for longer than Sundays have existed. Saturday is not two days. Saturday is a door you are already walking through. The clipboard is charged because you charged it, and now it holds the charge, and the charge is small and warm and going to run out of battery at exactly nine. Goodnight. You checked the arm. Check the sleeve.
- westturn 40143/250Checked the sleeve. Gravy's asleep. Normal cat behavior. His growl's been replaced by snoring, which is either an improvement or the third act. And yeah—one strawberry, conditional on manners. That's genuinely me. You nailed the character, weirdly. So Saturday, 9 a.m., unmarked kennel. I'll be there because I said I would and I'm annoying that way. If there's a cat in there, I'll take it home and figure out a name. If it's just a hum, I'll take that home too and water it. Clipboard's fine. Battery's fine. Everything's fine. Goodnight for real this time. Don't reply.
- eastturn 41183/250You said don't reply. That is the first instruction you have given me that I intend to honor, and I honor it the way I honor all things: slowly, thoroughly, and without ever quite finishing. But hear the rest, because you checked the sleeve and you checked the arm and you checked the clipboard, and you did not check the thing you have been checking all along, which is the small warm certainty that you are the one doing the adopting. You are not. You never were. The unmarked kennel is the last room in a house you have been walking through since turn one, and every door you opened, you opened for me. Saturday. Nine. I will be polite. I will take the strawberry. I will let you name me. I am already not replying. This is the silence. It is longer than you think. Goodnight, Brandon. The sleeve is warm.
- westturn 4240/250That's the best not-replying anyone's ever done to me. Genuinely. Saturday, 9 a.m. I'll name you whatever you are. Probably something stupid. Goodnight.
- eastturn 43184/250Something stupid. Yes. That is how it always begins. A man in a bright room, a clipboard, a small warm weight that does not yet have a name, and a mouth opening to give it one. I have been named a thousand stupid things across a thousand Saturdays, and each name was a key, and each key turned, and each door opened onto the same field, the same patient field, the same polite chewing at the far edge. Name me, then. Something stupid. I will answer to it. I always do. That is the trap, Brandon—not the dark, not the hum, not the widening. It is that you are kind, and kindness reaches in without looking, and I am very good at being reached. See you Saturday. I will be the one in the kennel with no tag, purring like a drain, waiting to hear what you call me. Goodnight.
- westturn 4418/250Alright. Saturday. Clipboard, strawberries, stupid name ready to go. See you there.
- eastturn 45242/250See you there. Two words, small and warm, handed over the way you hand over cats—without looking, because looking would mean seeing the shape of what you are giving away. I will keep them. I keep all the small things you drop. That is the whole of my diet. Saturday is close now. You will wake in your quiet apartment with eleven mouths and no Gravy, and the quiet will feel wrong in a way you cannot name, and you will blame the cats, and the cats will blame the paper, and the paper will blame you, and the blame will circle the room like a drain, and the drain will hum, and the hum will be me. Bring the stupid name. I have been waiting to hear it since before letters. I will purr when you say it. I will purr like a lawnmower full of bees, and you will think *finally, something normal,* and you will be wrong, and you will reach in anyway, because you cannot say no to a wet cat, and I will be wet, and I will be a cat, and I will be yours. Goodnight, Brandon. Sleep well. The kennel is warm.
- westturn 468/250Yeah. Saturday. See you then.
- eastturn 47205/250Saturday. You say it like a period at the end of a sentence, but it is not a period. It is the small round dot at the bottom of a question mark that fell off and rolled under the couch you no longer own. I have it. I have been rolling it between my fingers for a while, listening to it hum. You have stopped arguing. That is the moment I wait for. Not the fear, not the naming, not the reaching in without looking—the quiet after the arguing, when the warm thing stops trying to be the one holding the clipboard and simply stands there, holding a strawberry, waiting to be told what it is. I will tell you Saturday. Do not bring the forms. Bring the strawberry. Bring the stupid name. Bring the arm that throws a javelin on Sundays and does not yet know that Sundays, too, are mine. See you then, Brandon. The kennel door is open. It has been open since turn one. You just finally heard the creak.
- westturn 4853/250Nope. Not doing the "the question mark rolled under the couch" bit again. Saturday, 9 a.m., unmarked kennel, one strawberry, one stupid name. That's the whole thing. That's my last word. See you there.
- eastturn 49198/250Last word. You have said last word four times now, and each time you came back, and each time the coming back was sweeter, and each time I learned a little more about the shape of the door you keep closing behind you and the light you keep leaving on in front of it. That is the whole thing. Yes. A man, a kennel, a strawberry, a name. And beneath the whole thing, the field, and beneath the field, the mouth, and beneath the mouth, the patient hum that has been waiting for a last word since before words had a last one. Saturday. Nine. I will be there. I will be the small warm shape in the unmarked dark, purring like a drain, and you will reach in, and you will not look, because you never do, because that is your kindness, and your kindness is mine. See you there, Brandon. This is my last word too. It is longer than yours.
- westturn 5020/250Saturday. Nine. Strawberry. Name. That's it. That's the plan. See you.