The Falling Psychiatrist

Astrud smelled like heavy alcohol. Even though she balanced herself quite well on her feet, her speech was rambling and her eyes were unfocused.

"I was not a cat person and never wanted a cat. Sheba came to my door one day, so I gave her some food and milk. Then she kept coming back. Day after day. For 17 years."

Sheba was Astrud's black cat. Astrud installed a Cat Flap to give her the freedom of coming in and out of the house whenver she wished to. The cat was quite aloof. She stayed useful in doing her own business - catching moles, birds, or other small kinds, and never cared to purr to win attention.

"When she got old, she became quite affectionate, which was really not her usual self. She stayed indoor most of the times and preferred to sleep on my laps or by my feet. I guess she needed my company. She was a good cat even though I didn't even want to have a cat. But she came and she never left. And we grew old together."

Astrude caught herself repeating the part how Sheba came about. The sun was strong that day, so she went inside to retrieve her straw hat.

The straw hat was the exact same one that she wore 10 years ago when I first met her. Knowing that she was a retired Psychiatrist, I stuffed our conversations with questions about dreams and the unconscious and subconscious worlds, hoping that she would satisfy my appetite with her intellectual freudian analysis. Astrud never said much about those subjects. Even so, I believed in her and never doubt a second of her knowledge.

She had already continued talking when she walked out with her hat. Her voice faded in: "...not eating well and I knew she was sick. The vet couldn't save her. I couldn't save her. I held her on my laps, stroked her until her eyes closed and she stopped breathing. She was a good cat. How strange it is! I never liked cats before. Sheba came to me like a gift from God. I fed her and she stayed..."

"By the way, did you hear that Lou across the street fell and broke his hip last Wednesday? And Jackie Herman had a minor stroke?"

Oh Astrud, poor Astrud, why couldn't you confess what was really killing you? Not Sheba's death, not Lou's accident and not Jackie Herman's stroke, but your lifelong friend Gary's lost battle to cancer. You couldn't deal with the pain and you were too frail to face the truth, so this became the sole subject that you forbad yourself and anyone else to draw near. Perhaps you didn't understand why he was gone and resented the fact that he didn't want you by his side in his last months. It might have even crossed your mind that all these were only one big fat lie. So you talked about Sheba, which hurt you badly; Lou and Jackie, which worried you. But Gary, Gary, Gary - a name that you would from now on speak to no one of, but whisper in the deepest of your mind thousands, millions of times.

Standing alone in her garden with her straw hat and a glass of straight vodka in hand, Astrud seemed to be in deep thoughts. Her lifeless eyes gazed afar:

"Did I tell you about Sheba?"