It was some time into the second, boring month of lockdown. With the virus raging in the streets, my girlfriend stuck in a hotel waiting out a mandatory quarantine, and all the pro sports cancelled, I spent my days catching up on writing and reading. But mostly I just watched the news. It seemed worse every day.
It came as a total surprise when I heard a little voice: “Moooom! Moooom!” I couldn’t see anyone. I was alone, wasn’t I? I wasn’t even sure if I heard anything over the TV. I turned it down and locked eyes with the only other soul in the room: my cat, who jumped up on my lap. I must’ve been hearing things. “Good cat,” I said, giving him a rub as he purred.
He couldn’t have been speaking to me, right? He was just a grey, striped and somewhat overweight cat. The most he ever spoke was a few loud meows when he wanted treats or when he hissed at racoons outside. He was a good, quiet boy. No, there was no way. I looked back to the news and turned it up: a doctor was saying we’re in for a nasty summer, with infection rates rising to unprecedented levels.
***
Later that night, during a call with Meg, I asked her about my cat.
“Wouldn’t it be wild if Mingus spoke to me?”
“You mean, like, he begged for treats again?”
“No, like he spoke words. If he called me mom. Something like that.”
I could hear her take a deep breath and collect herself. “Kate, are you getting outside? I think you need more fresh air.”
“No, like, I’m serious! Like, what if I heard him… and besides, I can’t go outside. It’s a lockdown, honey. Everything’s closed.”
“Not everything. You still have your job at the newspaper.”
“That’s different. I’m essential,” I laughed. “People gotta read my column about the local music scene.” I paused - what local scene? Everything was closed and my last column had been about how boring everything suddenly was.
“Hey, Kate, before I forget, I watched this documentary last night…”
***
The next day it happened again. I’d been inside, sitting on the couch and watching the pandemic death toll rise ever higher on TV. Then I heard it:
“Moooom! Moooooom!”
It had to be the cat, right? I looked around. It was just Mingus, myself and a few stuffed animals. But when I looked at the cat, he just yawned. Was he playing tricks on me? Or was it my mind? He jumped on my lap, and I scratched his head while I tried to think. Was my cat trying to say something to me?
His food dish was full. So was his water dish. The litter box was gross but I didn’t have the spoons to deal with that mess today. And I don’t know, Mingus seems happy. He sleeps all the time, purrs often. He certainly eats as much as he wants. I got up and threw him some treats. I’d need a second opinion, so I turned down the TV, and sent Meg a message: “We need to chat tonight! It happened again!”
The apartment was getting louder, with a doctor’s booming voice predicting disaster in the southwest, where hospitals were unprepared for the third wave. Every time I pressed the remote, the TV grew louder. Finally, as the doctor wrapped up by saying she’d never been as fearful for the future as she was now, the volume slid back to normal. I looked at the screen, then at the remote. The set went black.
***
“So,” said Meg, “What happened, you had an anxiety attack?”
“No, no, no. Mingus! He spoke to me again. He looked right at me and said ‘Mom’. I heard it, Meg… he’s talking to me.”
“You saw your cat, who’s never shown any interest in anything but food, get up and start talking to you.”
“I didn’t see it, exactly… but I was there! It’s happened twice now!”
“Kate, Kate, Kate. I love you but you gotta hear what you’re saying. You’re telling me your cat talks to you. Have you gotten out of your apartment lately?”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.”
“Hey, speaking of going out, you’ll never guess who I ran into at the grocery store…”
***
Mingus came to me in a dream that night. In it, I sat on my couch, reading a book with no words, when he spoke.
“Kate, my dear. My food dish. It needs refilling.”
His voice was dapper, like an actor in a soap opera, and his diction was clear and sharp. When he spoke, it was with authority: I had to refill his food dish. The bag of kibble was deep and my arm went all the way down to the elbow. I filled his dish until it overflowed. Mingus got up on his hind legs and hugged me, giving me little kisses and licking my arms while making weird, shrill beeping sounds.
When I woke up, the alarm was going off, the covers were a mess and I’d knocked over a glass of water. Mingus was in the other room, sleeping on the couch.
***
Throughout the pandemic, I developed something of a routine. When I worked, I’d begin the day with a pot of decaf, read while I sipped, and sat in front of my TV, catching up on the news. On my days off, I’d also do this, but I’d stay in front of the TV for hours at a time, watching as doctors said the disease was uncontrollable, as politicians told people to avoid travelling and as news anchors told of doctors having nervous breakdowns and politicians sneaking clandestine trips to sunny destinations.
Sometimes I looked out the patio door, the only window in my apartment, and watched the snow melt. At times raccoons ran around, focused on what trash can had edible food that day. I looked at Mingus, lying on his side next to me. Does he worry? Can he understand the news? The news? I looked: the TV was on, the news channel showing B-roll of hospitals packed to the gills, nurses looking worn out and lines of cars waiting to get tested. Something nagged at me: I couldn’t remember turning the thing on. After a few presses on the remote, the unit clicked off.
“Moooom! Mom!” It was Mingus again. By now I was getting used to this; I scratched behind his ears, moving across and down to his cheeks. He made some mewing sounds and then I heard it: “Pandemic!”
“What? Mingus, say that again!”
He just looked at me and blinked.
***
That night, I brought it up once more to my girlfriend: “Meg, you’re not going to believe this but it happened again.”
“Your cat talked to you. He said ‘Mom’ and you dropped dead in your tracks. Did I get that right?”
“No, no, no.. he said more this time, Meg. He said ‘Pandemic’ when we were watching the news. He knows what’s happening!”
“Kate, I worry about you. You never watched TV before, but now you watch the news all day. And now you’re telling me your cat talks. I’m worried, babe.”
“No, no… It’s fine.” I sighed. “I mean, it’s bad out there. I gotta know what’s happening. Like today, we had over 4,000 new cases and there’s an outbreak just north of here and…”
“Kate! You gotta stop this, it’s not good for you or your mental health.”
I hung up and set the phone on the table. Mingus’ head poked up. I turned the TV back on and listened to a coiffed man explain how the infection rate was climbing even higher. The phone started buzzing: Meg was calling me back. I picked it up and tossed it into the corner.
***
That night I had yet another dream where Mingus spoke to me. I was sitting at the table, working on a crossword and I asked him if he had a word for what pigtails were made of.
“Have you tried ‘braids’?”
Of course he had a better answer than I’d come up with. It fit, too.
“Kate, I’m worried about you.”
“Oh god, not you too,” I said.
“Mom, listen. All you do now is watch TV and stress. It’s not like you.” He yawned and continued. “What about your manuscript? What about your cleaning? Kate - when was the last time you gave me a tummy rub?”
“But I have to stay informed-”
“Mom, no. That won’t work on me.” Mingus jumped up onto my lap. “I’m your cat, Kate. I know what’s happening here. You have a new roommate, and I don’t like it. ” He put his paws on my shoulders and his mouth a few inches from mine. “I want you to kick them out.” He opened his mouth and bit my nose. I woke up.
Down at the end of the bed, Mingus was sucking on a blanket, pawing at it like a baker kneading dough. I watched him for a moment and reflected on what he’d told me. I got up, put on a pot of coffee, and booted up my computer. I walked over to my phone and looked at it: Meg had been sending me messages saying she loved me and was sorry if she hurt me. I looked at the TV, walked over and unplugged it from the wall. I’d had enough.
Suddenly, the TV blared to life, showing footage of freezer trucks full of bodies and a disembodied voice intoning death counts across the country. “It’s rising, Kate,” said the TV. “You can’t stop it, Kate. You can’t stop me. You have to be informed!”
I fell back onto my butt, grabbed my head in my hands and took a deep breath. First the cat, now the TV. And one of them seemed like it had a grudge against me. I grabbed the remote, started pressing buttons at random, trying to stop it’s grim display of death. Nothing worked.
“Come on, come on,” I said, hitting the remote with my palm. “Dammit, turn off! Turn off!”
The TV started laughing, mocking me. The more I pressed, the faster the images changed: hospital beds, empty subway stations, footage of protests and lines of cars. The volume kept increasing, getting louder and louder until I thought it was going to blow out it’s speakers.
I didn’t know what to do, so I did the first thing that came to mind: I yelled for Mingus.
“Mom!” he yelled as he jumped off the bed and ran into the living room. He stopped, taking in the scene: me, sitting on the floor, feeling like I was about to have a panic attack; the TV laughing and flashing images faster than I could make them out. With a suddenness I didn’t know he possessed, Mingus flew at the TV, knocking it off the stand and shattering the screen into a jagged fractal; the laughter slowly gave way to a steady hum, and after a moment, that stopped too.
Mingus got up off the TV, looked at me, and went back to bed. I looked at the busted hulk of the TV and decided it was bedtime for me, too. This day couldn’t end fast enough.