About once a day if not more I play my life over in my head; I count up all the major events and the significance of it all. It’s become so clear that I know all my memories in chronological order. I feel like a detective scanning my eyes over film on a real, feeling its weight in my hands an watching the same clips over and over looking for the smallest hints. It’s winter. I have a chunk of my hair missing. Had to cut gum out. Must be first grade. See? hears another clip with that same chunk missing. Your in front of that rock wall in your elementary school and that boy is climbing it. He was only there in first grade. Then he moved, you have his face in a yearbook. But that doest have to be evaluated; you know it in your head.

I have watched this twisted movie a million times, I could say all the lines in the script by heart, I could tell you whats coming next. And god does it not get me every time…. It’s a seat clincher and I will scream out of fear every god damn time. Even when I know what is coming for me. There is something so beautiful about this film, but I don’t know why, because it’s so dark. I can not give you a reason why I watch it again and again or why I am fascinated with how surreal it all is. But I will tell you the story if you want me to, I would show you but I cant. And my words may not be as vivid as they are in my head or godlike that they feel, but it’s ok. I think I tell people because I hope they understand what the movie is about, see something I overlooked. 

Tonight I called my mother because tomorrow is thanksgiving. I have to plan everything out on this day because I have a lot of homes, to many mothers to count that I need to see. Holidays for me is when I become a sales person and I put on some nice clothes to make me look authentic and strong. I pick up my suit case and I knock on the door with an empty head. Im lead into a familiar home and I fill my head with the things I am selling. All the memories this home knows. I become just a small part of me. When I go home i will put the suitcase back with the others and put on the one I choose, or if I need to go on another sale I pick out fresh clothes and another case. 

We talked. I miss her and I feel warm. Then she tells me how she has been working at an animal shelter. I say thats nice. I bet you really like that. She does. I smile and god I cringe because I know I just felt like I shouldn’t. Because she is my child. I felt so proud, like I was glorifying my parenting skills for who she was. It is inconceivable to me that she lived before my own existence. I hold back the thought and keep talking, I am very good at controlling my emotions with my mother, funny. Because I Can not anywhere else. I can never figure out why I do that or how to recreate it in other situations. What the fuck. You there? yeah mom. So I was saying, I’m thinking of getting a cat.

A cat. 

Cats. Orange. I had a cat. Once. 

memory files open and I pour over the film. Cat. Mine. I do not have to watch the film because I know where it goes so I stop. I do not cry and I wait till she has to go. Love you mom, see you tomorrow. Click.

I put my phone in my pocket And I stare at your eyes and you know, you know it hurts. DOes it show in my eyes when I talk even though I talk perfectly normal, even smiling. Do I look scared? And then a vomit out words, I don’t know if you want to hear it but I need to hear it. Again.

I had a cat once, I remember my mom taking me to the pet store and I couldn’t believe I got to pick him out. I remember his face in front of me and how big he was in my arms. So warm like the color of his fur, sunset orange. We took him home and I had a cat. He was mine. My mom loved cats too, there were other cats. I must be older that 5 because I do not sleep here anymore. I have a bed but the sheets never change and the stuffed animals are lined up on it; they never move anymore. I know this is the hose with the boxilder bugs because I can hear our neighbor yelling and smacking over and over again. He had a line of fly swatters in his house next to a line of kitchen knives. His house was covered in small red dots of dead bugs. If you laid your head on the counter with one eye open it looks like a battle field in a war movie. A massacre. The masses were in thousands. I used to try and not step on them and save them, but there were so many that I would panic and end up crying when I found them on my shoes. So I stopped looking at them. To me the apartments just became red in my memory. Red and crawling.  

I loved that cat so much and he was my best friend. He knew everything and I knew he was smart too. He watched me and he never ran in fear. He was a lion and I always picture him bigger than me. Like a lion. I can see his face perfectly, but for the life of me I can not recall his name. It was the perfect name and I made sure because I had sat by our window with the summer light flooding in and he sat in its glow as I called out names. As time passes, hours passed, where was my mother? The longer I went the more complex the name became until it was perfect. Because he was perfect. I find it comical because when I try to print his name in words next to the slide of him in my memoir, it comes out as a long list of obscure symbols; like those to cover up dirty words in magazines. I laugh at the thought of a six or seven year old girl talking hours to think of the most slanderous word known to man for a perfect cat. hollering his name through the halls. So clever. 

One day I came over, I ran around hollering his name and scaring away the other cats, they were dumb, they ran away from me. Where is my lion? Where is my best friend? My shoulders were held and my mothers long black hair is around me like a willow tree and all I can see is her eyes filed with tears. He’s gone. I stared back and I did not believe her. Where is my cat? he’s gone.

time is missing in this part of the movie but it picks up and she is moving away from that apartment. I’m always asking if I can go visit him but she says I wont find him. She said that he ran away to the neighbors. I couldn’t get him to come with us. I was so angry. I was so angry so I cried.

Now I don’t know how true this film is, it says based on a true story, and I think it holds true to the facts, but I don’t know how much of it is from original film and what is documentation. Not all of my memories I was there for and sometimes they mold. I am sure there is a lot cut out. It is scary because I know there is other footage, but it is so black and burnt that I cant open it now. I can hear its horrible screeching but I cant help it. So I hide these clips under everything else. I can not help them. They will not die but I cannot help them.

My mother never told me. I was to never know. But I found it in bits and pieces. written documents, journals, emails, words from the mouths of other people. My evidence is mountains high. And I was good at digging it up. How I got those emails and stole those journals I do not remember but I was good, very good at getting what I needed.

My cat did not leave me. Not intentionally. Thats why it didn’t make sense to me. He loved me and he knew I needed him too. Your mother has quite a history. She cant have animals. I know. The records state your honor; the cat had been poured over with gasoline or some sort of lighter fluid and lit on fire. The cat was then thrown out a window to where it died. 

When I think of the word difinistrate, I think of that image. My lion with his mane of fire screaming in horror, protect my mistress, and his eyes melted and flew out the window, taking the light with him and leaving my mother in darkness. leaving the room stained black over the red crawling walls. He is gone.

I know this is not a real memory but it is real to me, and it is just as vivid. And it gets me every-time. The film is long and I pull the curtains after the scene. I do not want to watch the rest now. I will come back to resume it later.