Kleopatra Olympiou

I always used to meow at cats, but then I got really good at it. Henrietta, my calico, seemed alarmed the first time I purred at her – then she quickly grew unfazed, acknowledging the guttural vibrations with a slow blink, like a page turning: About time, I guess.

On the weekends, I sat with her by the window sill, watching the neighbours walk by, hair standing on end at night when the foxes cackled and screamed in the street.

I read my inbox every morning at the job I had hoped I’d enjoy and hissed every time Outlook chimed with a new email. I felt an inner simmering.

At the grocery store, I grew so itchy I rubbed my shoulder along the long aisle of freezer doors. I sniffed a bag of croissants, touching my cheek on the oily paper, then put it back.

I joined a yoga studio. Every day at six in the morning I did my cat-cow stretches, unzipped my body and let my spine breathe. Grew long.

Once, I had to help out with intern interviews at the office. I resented these hopeful young people. I asked them what their spirit animal would be and watched them squirm. I brought my prey candidate of choice to the CEO’s door as an offering. He was still twitching when I left.

I made pizza from scratch for dinner, looking for an outlet. Fists deep in the dough bowl, I kneaded and kneaded and kneaded and kneaded, searching for something, someone, an answer, a way out.

I got so mad one day at work, I began to knock things off the desk. To-do list, down. Pen, down. Half-full coffee cup, down. Chunky call-centre-style headset, down. Packed lunch, down. I liked the ones that made a noise the most. Whack. Down goes the plant. 

My colleagues all shared photos of their dogs. Later, I showed the pitiful creatures to Henrietta and we rolled our eyes. 

I ran a brush over my hair, over the fuzz on my arms, over my legs, smoothing everything out. 

One day I just couldn’t do it: emails, spreadsheets, office politics, reaching for windows sealed shut I wasn’t allowed to open. The office was pierced with sunshine, that low winter light that penetrates a space not used to the warmth of the sun in the late afternoon. I stretched long, then sprawled in the beautiful patch of light on the carpet, greyscale corporate outfit and all. 

My belly was warm, and among the sweet tactile sound of silly human typing, I leaned my head back and dissolved into sleep, free.

What Kleopatra said about the prompt:
My story was inspired by Rebecca van Laer’s memoir Cat and the way it posits that unlike dogs, cats are lovable to us not because we want them to be like us, but because we want to be more like them. It’s a great book!

Kleopatra Olympiou is a writer from Cyprus. Her stories have been published in swamp pink, Tiny Molecules, and Flash Flood, among other journals. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction. Find her at kleopatraolympiou.com.

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