The Catdiva Monologues Volume II

Volume II: The Silence After the Spaniel — A Meowalogue in Three Gazes

by the emotionally unravelling but eternally beautiful Akela Jean Underland

C-ACT I: THE VOID

It has gone. Vanished.
Whisked away by whatever foul and frivolous force first summoned it here. It is neither my concern nor want to investigate the phenomenon of its appearance and subsequent disappearance. I shall just take a deep, exhausted breath.

I should be delirious. Ecstatic even.

And yet—

I do not rejoice.

I sit atop the windowsill where no paw dares tread,
still cloaked in residual bark and the clinging sweat and the haunting echo of those ghastly long toenails against tile.
My box… is almost too quiet.

I yawn, theatrically. For no one.

There is no clamor of stupidity.
No smell of unwashed enthusiasm.
No one to bite with my mind.

And so I nibble elegantly, instead, on my own ennui.

The emptiness is not peace.
It is the aftermath.

The Boy Died…

---

C-ACT II: HAUNTING

It lingers.
Oh, not in body—but in my broken spirit.

I take solace in the piece of fluff next to my pillow.
Sniff the scent on my blanket. It smells so familiar- Admittedly, I specifically and repeatedly peed on it in protest of the thing’s existence. I have come to regret that decision. Oh hindsight, such a tyrant in the cloak of awareness.

And of course, I cannot settle. My eyes will not close for I feel
the pulling tension of anticipation, fear that it might, at any moment,
return.

Sometimes I flinch at shadows.
Sometimes I hiss at the air.
Sometimes… I merely blink.

Mother says,
“She’s gone now, darling.”

But is it truly ever gone?

The memory of it will remain long after i am gone. A nightmare that I shall have to live with until alas I am no more.

And…

What if it is not gone?
What if it has multiplied?

What if the next time there are two?

Or Bastet forbid. Three?

Two floppy-eared, mud-slicked, drool-tongued gremlins
who desire to sniff the regal folds of my belly fur and care nothing for the consequences?

I tremble.

Elegantly.

As I ponder my own asshole. You’re welcome.

---

C-ACT III: ACCEPTANCE

I have taken to journaling. I
To reciting poetry into the vents.
To curling into increasingly complex yoga poses and naming them things like ‘Emotional Withdrawal Swan’ and ‘Denial Lizard.’

I have spoken to the radiator.

It replied.
I have seen things.

More than you could know.

I am utterly changed.

But I am not defeated.

It came.
It drooled.
It conquered nothing. Although it did manage to figure out how to pull itself up on to mother’s bed. My mother’s bed.

I will survive. As I always have.

For I am Akela Jean Underland.
Descended from alley gods and queen of the bushes..

I remain.
Slightly more traumatised,
but wholly intact.

I shall now sit
directly on mother’s shoulder
until she remember what matters.

Namely, me.

I forgive, mothers.
But I do not forget.

I shall therefore. Whine.

(Cue dramatic violins. Fade to black. A single pear rolls across the floor. Curtain.)