The Mouse Catches the Cat
written by: S.R Malone
I can’t remember much of the day my father died, only that I was in school at the time. A vidcall came in through the office and I had to be pulled out of history class to speak with our old neighbour Mrs. Hames; my mother was sobbing in the background.
Six years to that day, I sit slumped over the glow of a computer screen. The light crackle of the rain on my window does little to soothe my aching head. Pictures of my father drift on and off the screen, and sadness wells in my stomach like a sickness.
In her room next door, I can hear mother yelling. The apartment we live in now is like a segmented box, the walls eggshell thin. I can hear all her doings these days. The stream of boyfriends she brings in rarely talk to me, or even recognise that I’m there. They don’t even seem to notice the reek of damp in the place, the shortage of furniture; Mum will introduce them once at breakfast, then by the following week they will have been replaced.
A tear rolls down my cheek, and I use my sleeve to stifle a sob.
I fold away my computer and huddle in the dark. Pink neon from the street pulses through the window, lighting my room at intervals.
From the hall comes a thunderous crash. Mum’s door slamming, a classic hit I’ve heard many times. This time, however, she seems to follow them out. The front door closes too.
I creep out into the hall, shielding my eyes from the glare of the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. The apartment creaks, warping under the influence of the evening rain.
Pushing at her door, it limps open. I feel the sickness rise into my chest. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been allowed in this room, prying a beer bottle from Mum’s hand and dumping her in bed.
The duvet is crumpled on the floor, covering a sea of loose clothing. It’s just like the rest of the place: barren, blasted of all warmth. Like a landscape scorched dead by one of those A-bombs. There’s no sign of Dad ever having existed, at least not at first glance.
I take a few shaking breaths and march across the battlefield, kicking an empty bottle in disgust. How did she let it get this way? I could never understand how we went from living life in the sun, to scurrying around like rats as we are.
Her drawers are filled with forged doctor’s notes and the odd empty cigarette pack. I push back her mirrored cupboard door, the thing rattling in its frame. Bare coat hangers gently bob in greeting.
I stop, glancing back at the hall, thinking that I heard voices on the stairwell.
There must be something of Dad’s in here.
I push aside dusty boxes and binders on the shelf in the cupboard, brushing away what’s left of Mum’s clothing on the hangers. A blank cardboard box sits far at the back, and I stand on tiptoes to have any chance of reaching it.
This was it.
Copies of Dad’s favourites books lined the box’s insides, under layers of faded photographs. The sting of tears fill my eyes again looking at his kindly smile stare up from the pictures. The world seemed to melt away, the din of the traffic and the nightlife dissolving in the background.
I cradled the box with one hand, rummaging with the other. Near the bottom, I struck something solid, like metal. My eyes widening, fearing that my mother had chosen this case to store a gun in, or something like that.
The device weighed heavy in my shaking palm. At first it looked like a random whatsit from an electronics store— a flat metal body with two trailing wires— but holding it to the dim glow of the lamp my heart started racing.
This was a legacy drive, his legacy drive.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
My gaze shifted to the door, my mouth going dry. Mum blocked the opening, panda eyes flared, fixed on me as if I was a housebreaker, other than her own daughter. I slid the legacy drive clumsily into my back pocket while she watched my face in disbelief.
I wiped my stuffed nose on my sleeve, trying to protest. She threw down her purse, fingers curling into bony fists, and stomped towards me.
“Mum, please—”
“You ungrateful dog. Stealing from me after everything I’ve given you!” and a sharp pain erupts across the right side of my face. The box topples from my grip, the trinkets spilling out across the wasteland of clothing and bed covers. As my cheek started to go numb, another hit landed. I fall to the bed. The soft mattress was of little comfort as a third hit struck, this time in my ribs.
I could still feel the weight of the legacy drive in my pocket, so I curled into a ball and thought to weather out the rest of the storm. A gentler hand pressed down on my side, followed by the sound of Mum weeping hoarsely.
“I’m sorry, Lexi, my baby, I’m so sorry—”
For a few seconds, I count myself lucky that Mum has no bodymods, that she can afford none. She’d have inadvertently beaten me to death numerous times over, otherwise.
Her bedroom door is wide open I notice; I can see the exit. I take a handful of shallow breaths and scramble forward on all fours.
***
I run. I run until my legs fade to numbness like my face, replaced with a stinging heat that burns deep down through my pores. The apartment is a blur in the background, lost in a wash of other run-down flatblocks and units.
The rain continues to hurl from black skies. I duck through the crowds downtown, the scenes awash in blue and magenta. No one really has time to fixate on a runaway, being so into their drinks and chems as they are. I bump into one dip, but he is obviously too strung to notice.
Dad’s legacy drive is cradled in my back pocket; it’s so heavy I don’t even need to stop and check it’s still there.
Vast crowds change to stragglers, until I’ve jogged so far that there isn’t a nightclub or bar in sight, and my lungs heave from the journey. I hadn’t even stopped to see if Mum was following me, though I doubted she could under the influence. She couldn’t follow much, these days.
I weave down an alley packed with garbage cans, stepping over a sleeper, and ring the buzzer of 12-F. After another press, a face forms on the blue screen by the door.
“Lex? What are you—”
“Ari, please, I need somewhere to stay.”
She doesn’t question, and I’m grateful. There was no way I would manage to get through a description of tonight without breaking down on her doorstep. The buzzer makes a responsive tone and the door swings open.
Three flights up, I almost collapse as Ari greets me.
“Sounds like you were smart in getting out of there,” she said, after I had poured my guts out. She held a wet compress to my cheek, studying me with that sympathetic glint in her eye.
“I’m sorry,” is all I seem able to manage, but I’m promptly shushed. “Are your parents home? I didn’t wake them, did I?”
“Relax, they are out for the night. An anniversary meal.”
I take over with the compress as Ari goes to fetch me some water. My dark reflection in the rounded glass of the TV makes me wince, swollen like a loser in a boxing match. Even just the sight of myself makes my ribs flare up.
Grunting, I remember the legacy drive and place it on the coffee table.
“Take these,” said Ari, returning with a handful of painkillers. She eyes the device, “And this is what set your mum off, is it?”
“Certainly is.”
“Wow,” she said, the Midwest twang in her voice ringing. “My folks apparently have legacy drives of their own.”
“Huh. I didn’t know they did.”
“Oh yep! Daddy got his from work. Perk of the job, he said. Mum bought her own shortly after.”
I rub my aching face, now damp from the compress. It came as no surprise that Ari’s parents had bodymods, I mean why wouldn’t they? They had everything else.
In the awkward expanse between talking, Ari scooped up the drive and inspected it.
“What exactly does it do?”
“Uh, it’s like backup bank of RAM for your brain, basically,” I said, “But they are meant to record thoughts and feelings, too. Kind of like having a transcriber in your head.”
“Wow,” Ari repeated, and she lay it down again.
“I don’t suppose your parents have any idea how to access what’s on the drive? Do they connect to a specific terminal?”
“No idea.”
She smiles and I painfully smile back. My head spins with the events of the night, too fast to focus. Ari then guides me to her room, and I burrow under the bedcovers like an animal sheltered from the rain.
The dizziness only stops as I start to slip away.
***
Waking to a network of dull aches across my body, I stumble downstairs and greet Ari’s parents, who have set out a spread on the breakfast table. Occasionally taking me in is like par for the course for them.
After we eat, Ari’s mother looks my cheek over. I stare into her deep green eyes as her gaze pores over me, a slight crinkle in her brow examining my injuries.
“Lexi, are you sure you wouldn’t like us to speak with the authorities?”
“No thank you, Mrs. Paulsen,” I reply, my response being well rehearsed by now, “I’m sure Mum didn’t mean it. Likely she won’t do it again.”
Satisfied for now, Ari’s mother left me with a lingering look before getting sorted for work. Ari walks in and swiftly whisks me out the door, double-checking that I had the legacy drive on me.
“My dad wasn’t too helpful about where we could find a terminal for that thing,” she said as we stroll into town. “But I may know a tech-head who can point us in the right direction.”
It is a dreary morning. The weak sun failed to burst through the blanket of grey, the light spitter of rain beginning to fall. I inhaled the chilled morning air deeply, focusing only on the bulky drive in my possession.
I didn’t recognise this part of town too well, and soon Ari was leading me down a winding iron stair and into a labyrinth of garage units. She knocks almost unsurely on the shutter of the last in the row, and we are ushered inside.
“Ah, what can I interest you ladies in today?” smirks a wide-faced lump in black overalls, closing the shutter after us.
“We’re here to see Tripp. I called ahead.”
The lump takes Ari’s answer, looks her up and down once more and calls back for Tripp.
A leather-bound chair swivels in the back, and a lanky guy strides over. He isn’t much older than us, even packing a white zit on his cheek where unconfident hairs are wriggling through.
“He used to work with my dad,” Ari mumbles back to me, “At intern-level. He’s great with tech.”
“And you know him how?”
I quickly learn Ari and Tripp had a fling a year back; the longing looks are still there, and once you notice them, you can’t stop. Tripp urges me to take a seat in his ‘dentist chair,’ he says with a chuckle, and asks for the legacy drive.
“And how are we paying for this today?”
Shit. I hadn’t even thought.
Ari slips him a few bills and he fingers them carefully. “I’ll get you the rest next week, if that’s cool?”
Tripp nods and starts hooking up devices with spare cables he pulls from his overalls.
“Ari, I don’t know what to—”
“Don’t worry about it. My dad won’t notice the money’s missing,” she winks. I love and hate her at the same time.
Tripp holds out a black device with straps, his clawed nails drumming on the sides.
“Put this on over your head,” he says, bathed in soft blue light from a nearby terminal. “That’s the drive connected, if you want to surf.”
***
Dad stored everything twice over.
His governmental documents, legislation, health and safety; it was all there. Mandatory documentation, I assume. None of it stands out, and I shove it aside. Two generic grey hands are in place of my own in this environment.
I move past the workaday stuff, not having a clue what I’m supposed to look for. The files were obviously important to someone at some time, but not me.
The interface shifts with the flick of my wrist. I see a strong white light, not real but real enough to make me scrunch my face.
Polygonal synapses lead off into the distance. It’s hazy back there. I claw towards one on the right and suddenly I’m seeing through his eyes.
Dad’s eyes.
And he’s lifting me up at my eighth birthday party. A streamer flies past and makes me shudder, it’s so real.
Beyond the headset, I can hear Tripp’s friend scoff.
Visits to the playground next, interspersed with a journey upstate to Aunt Marie’s. I remember it so well, almost able to recognise the scent of pecan pie from the décor in her living room alone.
I swallow hard, and fast forward. I skip past the laughter, the arguments, the sickness. I skip to a part where Mum is crying. She says she can’t do this anymore. She says there’s someone else. But I didn’t know. I must have been in bed, shielded from this.
Nausea is setting in. A dry belch shreds my lungs.
“Shut up, Kir,” I hear Tripp outside this world; he scolds the lump, “Normal reaction to this.”
I spin on.
Dad’s feet are now on a ledge, one of the bridges looking over a section of downtown. An acidic wind is ripping at his skin. Streets crisscross a hundred feet below, motors belting past in the blink of an eye.
His thoughts are steeped in me; he wishes he could be there for me, but his mind is too broken. He hates the numbness, the repetition of the day job. Money is no good to a shattered mind, he thinks. His chapped lips curl in a smile. Behind him come panicked voices.
He leaps.
My teeth clench. My face is being hit with the rush of wind, and then the hypnic jerk, like falling during sleep. My breathing has doubled; shallow breaths that take in little air.
Paramedics rush in some time later, the view now sideways. That’s where the tape ends.
I rip off the headset, fresh tears rushing down my cheeks. Tripp calmly takes it from me, thumbing my sweat-slick brow while flashing a penlight into my eyes. Their voices are muffled now, the panic sending blood into my ears. I shake, but can’t stop it. Calming is too much, it’s too much.
Staggering for the shutter, the lump has already opened it for me. I spill my stomach across the ground, gripping the garage wall for dear life.
“Lexi, I’m so sorry,” said Ari, rubbing my shoulder.
I gasp for air. “I- I never knew,” I panted, “how he died.”
And really, what good had it done? To feel a mind so warped by life that life suddenly isn’t an option anymore. I wiped spit from my lip, wondering why Mum kept the drive. Or how she had acquired it to begin with.
What good had it done? What was it all for?
Life was an ever-predatory cat, hunting us, the countless mice. The legacy drive taught me that. Dad taught me that. It was one of his final memory trails before colliding with the concrete.
***
I felt all kinds of things, staggering out of Tripp’s workshop. Ari guided me out after accepting a foil sheet of tablets from him; “Stabilisers,” he’d said, “They should ease the shock some.”
We walk mostly in silence up the pedestrian footpath onto the Foster Bridge; the structure darts ahead of us into the muggy morning, stretching across the choppy waters of the Frandover. In the opposite direction, it delves into the city, overlooking block upon block of busy streets.
“Is this where you want to be?” asks Ari. Up until now, any attempts she’s made at starting a conversation have been tentative at best.
I nod. We stop.
Chill winds snake around us. I stare over the edge of the bridge, right angled streets making the concrete world look like a game board. And in many ways, it is.
“I don’t understand,” I say, gummed saliva sticking to the corners of my dry mouth. “I don’t get why my mum would keep the drive. She used to talk crap about my Dad all the time, even after he died.” The notion that she hadn’t always been completely sober during those occasions did occur, and they probably did to Ari too.
She watched me with full eyes.
“Maybe she kept it for you. Something you could have in later life.”
“Brutal. What a mind-fuck of a gift to leave someone,” and I pat the back pocket of my jeans, the legacy drive’s bulk tugging at the material. “I never knew the extent of it all. How badly he needed to talk to someone, I guess.”
Ari nods, deep in thought.
A pang of anger tingled the back of my neck, residual rage at my mother for an entire spectrum of reasons. My cheek is swollen now, a bruising pattern opening like a flower; my ribs are fuzzy, a muffled ache taking a backseat to the others.
Images of her in bed sleeping off a hangover fuel a burning inside me. Part of me yearns to hike back to the apartment and scream in her face, show her the same kind of attention that she showed me for six laborious years. Maybe show her the drive one last time and put it through her fucking skull—
Dad loved her, though. His thoughts nudge at my own as we stand, cars whizzing by behind us. He loved her despite her sleeping around, her unwillingness to ask him how he was doing in the face of everything. And then the advent of her drinking. His love for her remained.
“Have you figured out what you would like to do, Lexi?” asks Ari.
I don’t answer for a long while, just letting my body get washed over by the breeze.
“I can’t go back there,” I mumble. An itchiness forms on the surface of my forearms at the mere suggestion. It’s not even an option.
I produce Dad’s legacy drive, letting it feel the encroaching sunshine. It’s familiar now, the mere touch of it nudging at the clouds bothering my brain. Whether it was serotonin or just plain exhaustion, I couldn’t say.
“And I can’t live at your folks’ forever.”
“Of course you can! They love you.”
We share a smile, mischievous almost, like the ones we’d do back in elementary school.
“I think I have an idea,” I say, and start us walking for the set of stairs leading off the bridge to the streets below.
I wasn’t sure then if it was Dad guiding me, if part of his psyche had imprinted itself into my brain from the surf earlier. It could have been me coming to my senses at long last, darkness giving way to dawn; the legacy drive could be backed up, copied and preserved separately, and the drive itself wiped then sold. Sold for God-knows-how-much.
This may have been his gift after all. I could find a one-bed somewhere close to Ari, and away from Mum. I could even enrol in college again, who knows? Who really knows…
The possibilities are endless. The future was unfolding like a blank canvas, and I finally had other colours to paint with besides grey.
“Do you think Tripp could manage a backup job on the drive?” I ask Ari. Her mouth extends into a wide grin, causing me to grin, too.
“Anything’s possible, I guess,” she laughs.
Yeah, anything’s possible. I’m sure of it now.
In my head, Dad’s smiling too.
The End
- The Mouse Catches the Cat - September 21, 2024
- Date with Oblivion - May 1, 2023
- Land Grab - November 17, 2021
