Looking up at her from the floor, Michael Stein said, “I’ve tried everything.”
He really had. Michael Stein had pulled out his full arsenal of techniques to cheer Lucy up. He had whipped himself back and forth across her ankles when she stood. He climbed on to the bed with her and kneaded the stuffed penguin she was attached to for some reason he couldn’t fathom. He curled up beside her and suckled on the edge of her old blanket. He even brushed his head on her chin and fired up the rumble of his full-on purr. Normally, that fixed just about any problem she had—even problems with boys.
“You’re having a classic grief reaction,” Pax said, licking his forearm. “You’ll get through it. You’ll be all the wiser for it. Like me.”
Michael Stein wished that Pax would quit with the old and wise act. He was annoying. But he was also right. Michael Stein couldn’t fix this. Even during the best days of his life, he had only been a medium-size tabby cat. Now…well, now he was a dead medium-size tabby cat. A ghost of his former self.
Before he died, Michael Stein had lots of opinions about the dead cats he’d met. He’d spoken to plenty of them. All cats did. They see things that humans don’t, including the ghosts of departed cats. Michael Stein had found the sulky way they moped through their human’s homes kinda pathetic. They could go anywhere! Do anything! They weren’t bound to their humans. They didn’t need to coax food out of them or rely on them to change the litter. All of those physical needs were gone. Instead, they lingered on as pure vaporous energy. Considering that, why did they all stick around the same houses, watching the same lives of the people they’d lived with before they died?
He used to argue about this with Pax, who was the ghost of an old cat that had belonged to Lucy’s mother when she was a girl. He’d died like thirty years ago! But the old geezer was still hanging around. He seemed to think the afterlife should consist of nothing more than lying curled in a ball at Lucy’s mother’s feet. The woman didn’t even know he was there! What was the use of that?
Michael Stein had been sure that when he died he’d get up to all sorts of adventures. Once he was freed of any dependence on his humans he’d just take off. See ya. Been nice. Thanks for the catnip. He’d explore the world.
But that was before he died. Now, he wasn’t so sure. A few days in the afterlife, and Michael Stein was starting to think he had misjudged the virtues of being dead.
The whole ghost body thing wasn’t as much fun as he’d expected. He didn’t have to worry about getting hurt or killed anymore, but he couldn’t feel or smell or touch the world the way he used to. The things he thought he’d so enjoy about being dead just didn’t live up to his expectations.
He’d always wanted to go right out onto the tiniest little tree branches in pursuit of the chickadees that seemed to think the entire garden belonged to them. When he was dead, he figured, he’d be light as a feather and could go anywhere they did. That was true. Problem was that when he got out on really thin branches his body would sink through them. He’d gotten right up beside a bird once, only to watch in frustration as the branch slipped through his body and he floated down to land in the bird pond.
Worse still, he couldn’t actually touch the birds. He’d stalked a few his day first as a ghost. It was great right up until that last moment when his vaporous form crashed down upon the unsuspecting birds without having the slightest impact. Sometimes, when he’d really splattered them good, the bird might feel just enough to get a little nervous and fly away. It was terribly unsatisfying.
More importantly, there was Lucy and all of her crying. If he could step back in time and change things, he would. He wouldn’t sneak out that fateful night. He wouldn’t focus all of his attention on that rabbit den. He’d have kept his wits about him, and the beast—he was never sure what exactly it was—wouldn’t have pounced on him. One moment he was about to sink his claws into a juicy rabbit. The next, something had caught him in its jaws. End of story.
He was philosophical about it. Every cat had to go at some time. His time had just come. At least it happened so fast he didn’t feel any pain. And he had died a hunter’s death. Live by the claw, die by the jaw, he’d always said.
Still, it seemed very, very important that Lucy not be so sad. He’d always liked her, even if he never took her declarations of love for him too seriously. She had called him the “best cat ever” hundreds of times. He’d thought nothing of it. Now he realized just how much he’d meant to her, and how much she meant to him.
The situation was insufferable. Michael Stein decided to do something about it.