for Eddie
It was probably like around 3AM when I finally shook myself of the dream that I woke up dead. Ed was staring at me in that way that only cats can stare at you without you getting nervous or pissed off. He probably wanted breakfast, but it was really way too early. I don't know exactly what the dream was, I only know that I woke up and I was dead and I couldn't move any part of me and I wanted to ask someone if I was really dead, only I couldn't. And deep in the pit of me, in that deep place where I always imagined my soul would reside, if I had a soul, which was something that I debated over from time to time, but with myself only, as to the outside world I was certainly an avowed agnostic that more than leaned towards atheism, because you have to put up a unified front, you know? You have to be consistent with your opinions about these things to your friends and other members of the great unwashed masses, because the second someone with half a brain sees you hesitating on a monumental question of faith or lack there of, bing! there's a chink in your armor and the smarter or more persuasive ones are free to attack. So, these theological debates only occurred within my own head, but what I was saying that somewhere inside me, all I felt was the void. The black dense unmittigating unceasing eternal void. Eternity always scared me. I think that's probably what turned me off from religion in the first place.
So, luckily, at some point the void began to slip, the void was perhaps having
an argument that my soul could overhear about its existence, and there was the
chink and I broke through and woke up and saw Ed staring at me, big chartruese
eyes glowing from the soft light from the pink outside. It was about 3 AM but
here it's always a dark pink dawn due to the street lights. I didn't get up.
I wanted to get up and see if my roommate was still up and see if maybe talking
would help me shake this feeling of dread, because I still felt weird, I still
felt some odd sense of something wrong. I'd been having these weird nightmares
that involved Kurt Cobain, like one where we wanted to have sex but couldn't
because he didn't have fully developed genitalia, and one where after one overdose
Courtney hired me to baby-sit him, and one afternoon I remember making him get
into little boy's flannel pjs and putting him to bed, and the afternoon sunlight
filtered through the gauzy curtains and I was about to leave the room and he
told me no, don't leave the room, and he made me hold his hand and read him
a story. He looked very lost in the flannel pjs and sheets and blankets and
I told him stories, but I was scared that when Courtney came back from shopping
she'd be really pissed off and maybe fire me, or beat me up. Another dream he
called me into a room, and again I remember the sun filtering through curtains,
only they were heavy drapes that were orange like you see in mid-range hotels,
and I guess it was a hotel room because there was a big bed in the middle, and
I was afraid to go in, again afraid of Courtney, so I stood at the door and
he reached in his pocket and took about a box, little grey/ lavender velvet
box and flipped it open and there was a diamond ring, not too big, a very nice
ring, and he said, Kurt said, 'Here, this is for you. You're the one I would
have married." and I was stunned to say the least, and touched. A few nights
before I had a dream that my band was going to sign with some label, and Kurt
was helping me out and we kept having lunch meetings, and at one meeting Kurt
didn't show up and the record company guys said, 'Oh, we don't need him. He
just causes trouble," and I was really adamant about not continuing without
Kurt, and I went in the bathroom and threw up and I suddenly realized that Kurt
was not ok, that he was overdosing somewhere and I felt really awful. The quality
of light in this dream was a bit dreary, with the light looking very grey through
thick drapes, and the record company guys were all in suits. So I felt that
Kurt was sort of paying me back in a way for sticking up for him, you know,
with the diamond ring. Poor Kurt. He always looked sad in my dreams.
I went back to sleep and woke up at five-ish and went to the gym, and fed Ed first of course, probably tuna or another fish flavor. Ed favored fish. Ed was a big solid grey cat, like 17 pounds, and tall, and once I sent my grandmother a picture of me and Ed and she said to my father "That's not a cat! That's a mountain lion!" only she probably said it in spanish. My grandmother thought that cats carried multiple sclerosis and could give you mal ochio and sucked the souls out of babies. Ed had a big happy face when he was going to get fed, and he'd chortle alot and made sounds like he was a video game. Ed loved breakfast, and he loved the string game, which he called the sport of kings or sport du roi as he liked to speak french. Ed told me that he was from another planet and it was up to him to rule this planet. It was his job when he was sent here from Snevilac or Snevil-O, the name of the planet changing depending on his mood. Snevil-O was the more mysterious version of the story. Some day he'd get called back to his planet and another being would take over, probably Merv, who was only an earth cat, but Ed thought he was pretty OK. Ed told me that when his body gave out he'd go back to Snevilac, but earth cats go to heaven, and at the gates they get greeted by actress Sandy Dennis, best known for her roles in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and "The Out-of-towners." Greeting cats at the gates was not a chore for Sandy, Ed explained, but an honor. I asked him what happens to humans but he said he had no idea. After Ed died I kept having nightmares that he'd be in the kitchen asking me to feed him, and I'd open can after can and he couldn't eat because he was a ghost. I told Ed I loved him very much and I wanted him to be happy and if leaving the apartment made him happy that's what he should do, and he did. He used to sleep in my arms with his head on the pillow like he was my boyfriend, and he had a fan club even, and had his picture in a comic book. He was a very popular cat.
After Kurt died, which was a few months before Ed died, my nightmares stopped,
but were replaced by dreamless voids which were as bad. I went around feeling
very badly for Kurt and I wished I could have told him stories and petted his
head and fed him tuna. I wished I could have told him that Ed would take care
of him.
copyright 1999, marie mundaca. all rights reserved.