The floor was a long way down, the flower patterns small and blurred. I knew it was a bad idea once I reached the top. Mother will yell, father will laugh. The bookcase shook as I readjusted myself. I had seen it done before, by the boy who’s gone now. He wasn’t scared. He promised to teach me before he died but he never got a chance.
Perhaps I should have left it, but I wanted him to be proud. He said he could see me. He was in the clouds and wind and dust, he would watch over me and keep me safe, he said.
Where was he now? I was going to fall from the bookcase and I knew the dust couldn’t catch me. I heard footsteps, the humans were home. Mother and father could help me down. But I wanted to do it myself. I looked around at the chairs and tables. Which one could I reach if I jumped hard enough? None. Stop being scared, I told myself in the boy’s voice.
The wood was cool and slippery beneath me, its varnish reflecting the flickering candlelight. The smell of the books was warm and I wondered if I should just stay here forever. I closed my eyes and replayed the boy climbing down from the highest shelf like he was nothing more than a shadow. He used everything he had, everything he could see, everything he could reach.
His claws dug into the books on the shelf beside this one, then he would jump back onto a lower shelf and onto the floor. He never missed. I would miss it. I would fall and break my bones and when I was dust too the boy would tell me I could have done it, if I only believed I could.
I can do it, I told myself, though I hardly believed, but still my legs moved. I stood up on the slippery dark wood bookcase and eyed the hardcovers with the boys claw marks, the fabric frayed and torn. The footsteps got louder and so did the boy’s voice in my head.
Jump, little cat, the boy said in my mind, his own tail flicking back and forth, sending strings of dust into the air.
I jumped, reaching out for the books that were just too far away. The floor hit me fast and hard and stars whirled around in my mind. I sat on the floor looking up at the shelf, the boy’s voice still in my head.
Try again, little cat. Try until you don’t have to anymore. I watched the dusty cat climb the books up to the top and rest on the cool wood. I missed the boy but I believed him now. He was the wind and the clouds and the dust and he could see me.
I stood back up, the humans running their fingers along my back to the tip of my long, black tail. My bones weren’t broken and the dust hung in the air, waiting for me to try again. With the dusty cat sitting at the top, I climbed the books again and welcomed the cool, dark wood against my fur.
I watched the humans settle down in their chairs. They missed the boy, too. I knew I would fall again, and again, and again. But now I knew the dust would catch me.
* Megan Price is a self-published writer who lives in Trafalgar on the KZN South Coast. She has written numerous flash fiction stories, one of which won The Creative Writing Ink Short Story Competition in 2022. She has also written and self-published a number of longer short stories and has sold copies all over the world.
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