UnBooks:Dear Sunday
Sunday. What does this even mean now? My first and last Sunday in Vietnam. The sunset is majestic, the only thing impeding the view, the forest on the horizon is soon bulldozed by the planes. I feel that I can't feel anything - so I just watch.
A piece of glass falls on the floor but doesn't shatter to sharp microscopic pieces that are not producing that particular noise glass makes when it shatters. Looking at the reflection of one's own features after one's best times have gone past is painful: I can't find a single trace of what was there just a few minutes ago.
Life ruined me. It ruined me in the exact same way it has already ruined thousands of souls and in the exact same way it will ruin thousands of souls still. Keeping up is hard, it arguably is the hardest thing you can ever endure, giving up is even harder. That's what I feel and I can't express that.
Vietnam was difficult. For everyone, certainly. For me in particular. There has never been anything particular about me. I am not particular and I would say: "and never will be", though it's hard to even envision the possibility of a future at my age. I am not old. I am ten. In any case, it's all relative. I might have already been dead had I been a cat.
I am not. I am a dog.
While phrases complete with epithets were flowing out of the mouth of the American guy who talked about all things calm and beautiful, a bombing in Cambodia burnt half of my tail. And then the rest of it. I recall a journalist who was taking photos of everything that day and then sent them to papers that offered him good pay. Curious about how I'd look on a front page I tore the front page off of one magazine on my arrival to the States, but they cut me out of the photo and left that girl who, that day, was running naked in front of me.[1]
That was the day I met Sunday. Sunday was beautiful, sublime. And a cat. My cat. That might be why I outlived her, yet, I know this isn't it.
Memories are doing nothing. I am looking at it all as at a motion picture with a strange bulldog as a protagonist. He looks funny. I look funny. It's funny how my brain can't make connections.
I don't want to recall Vietnam. I don't want to recall girls, drugs and alcohol. That was some really good life out there. Of course, with girls I was not a bulldog, but rather a rhinoceros. Everyone feared me. And Sunday - most of all, especially when the night came. At daytime, there was nothing to be afraid of, as I was a bulldog like most of the others. The drugs made me human, I think. Or was it the other way round?
What really allows you to trace a border between a dog and a human state is the moment you stop humping the girls' legs and go for the... Well, now I have to remember which came first in my case. Because it's pretty mixed up in my head, if you haven't yet noticed.
And Sunday just isn't helping it. Of course, she isn't, she is dead. She never did. She never helped it, even when I begged her to, so I always ended up doing everything myself while she just lay there, motionless.
They say it's always the case with prostitutes. But it's a common... What? Denominator? Factor? Hey, I got it. It's a common myth. It's a common myth about the prostitutes, because the others I met were pretty willing to, you know, so I usually stopped mid-way, payed them the drink and let'em out. This was never the case with Sunday. I guess that's where her charm resided.
I loved her and - I am not afraid to admit - she loved me, too. It's she who first convinced me to chain her to my bed. I would ask her: "Sunday, do you wish me to chain you to my bed?" And she'd respond nothing. So I would, knowing the silence was an evidence of consent.
She always agreed to me doing things. And then she just lay there motionless. Sometimes, she stood, though. When she was chained to the wall instead of the bed - that is. I guess being motionless was her way of appreciating the moment when it came. We all have different coping methods, as a the-ra-pist has recently explained to me. Mine was to bite everyone around me, like a bulldog.
I don't know if I ever lay on Sunday's lap or on her feet. I don't think I could, seeing she was a cat. I did bite her, though. That was my coping method of saying she was appreciated. She used to be human, too, I think, unless it's just my memory playing tricks on me. It probably is. It must.
You know - how else can it be? Humans aren't supposed to be chained to the wall, are they?
It's me who guessed she was a prostitute. She would never tell me anything, unless she was high on something. Sunday took drugs, too. I often asked her: "Sunday, do you want some drugs? Sunday!! Do you...want...some...drugs??" And then she'd respond nothing.
It's me who gave her the name, by the way. She never told me hers. I found her shivering naked on the street, because the Cambodia bombing had burnt her clothes and her house. The day I found her was Wednesday. And then came the attack where half of my regiment died. Three quarters, actually. Everyone except for me. We were four and I shot the three others halfway to the enemy base, because they said they'd turn around and dessert instead. So I retreated to my base, found the commander - he was pretty busy with his own sunday, - told him the story and asked what dessert meant. Instead of answering, he promptly awarded me a medal of honor. That day was Thursday.
Then a friend of mine explained to me that "dessert" was the sweet thing you could never get but always wanted, so I was about to call Sunday just that, but then reconsidered it and named her Sunday instead. Sunday was the day the commander liked using his needle and as we were always supposed to follow him in every act, it was also the day we used ours.
The name fit Sunday well. She really enjoyed being a cat, too.
"Sunday, do you want to be my cat named Sunday?" - I'd always ask her...
I don't remember on whose side I fought. Dogs don't fight, they say. That's a common myth. I remember everything as if it was last week. It actually was last week. Unless it was a year ago, in which case it wasn't.
I have changed so much. I have pale hair now. Dogs don't have pale hair. I am a human dog. They say pale hair is an indicator of age. It is not. It is an indicator of whether you have fought. I didn't, so I managed to grow it. The others - all those who did - kicked the bucket before they ever had the opportunity to grow any pale hair or anything. I didn't kick any bucket, but Sunday did. That's what my the-ra-pist explained to me.
He also said that people died if they only ate one day a week, but as it was so obviously false (I only fed Sunday on Sunday), I chained him to the wall in his office and fed him only once a week. I wanted to see if he would kick the bucket as he said he would, but he didn't.
There was no bucket in his office, so he just died.
I remember my last Sunday in Vietnam. We were leaving, so I kissed Sunday goodbye. I still felt some regret, so I bit her ankle and then lay on her feet for the first and the last time in my life. I gave her the money she would need without me and boarded the plane. I double-checked all my belongings - there wasn't much to check - and mentally recreated the list of everything I had to do before the departure and there seemed to be nothing I was missing. Yet, I was still not rid of the feeling that I left something behind.
I took out my pocket-mirror - it was my habit to look at my own reflection in the glass when I felt I was forgetting something, - and noticed what drastic transformation overcame most of my features. Life has ruined me, as it will ruin thousands of souls still. I watched the sun set and realized that we were the ones burning down stuff, then I dropped the mirror to the floor (even though that was quite unrelated) and only when I heard that it made no sound - when Sunday fell to the floor, she would not make any sound either - did I realize that I forgot to unchain her from my bed, my lovely mute cat, my dear, very dear Sunday.
Footnotes, References, and Similar Boringly Serious and Seriously Boring Stuff[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Editor's Note: The author rather inexplicably has somehow failed to understand that obviously marketing executives in each corporation of the mainstream media, being legally banned from conspiring together as a cartel, had each independently concluded that pedophiles must be a vastly more lucrative demographic for advertisers than are dog-lovers, even after including any dog-lovers who might not be into bestiality.
