The Pyramids of Broadway

The man who came over left a box of doughnuts on the coffee table. He’s been over before and he always brings treats. Not treats for me. Treats for the Doctor. Even knowing that there are doughnuts in the box, I must examine it. I nudge the box once, twice, until it falls onto the floor with a thump. I wonder if the Doctor and his man will exit the bedroom to investigate, but they do not. I hear a sharp intake of breath, and then a short laugh. They are occupied. I see a doughnut release a little jelly onto the hardwood floor. It looks like blood, but fresh blood. Blood that means there’s still time to save something.

Before the Doctor began having the man over, he had another Doctor living here. They were happy until they weren’t, and when they weren’t, they would yell about credit cards. One would yell about numbers on the credit card, and the other would justify those numbers. The one justifying would pick me up, and pet me to soothe himself. It didn’t soothe me, but I allowed it. His anxiety smelled like mold on a raspberry. I wanted to dig my claws into his cheek and go down, down, down until he never picked me up again, but I did not. The Doctor yelling about the numbers was holding a piece of paper. The paper had numbers on it. The Doctor holding me pointed to the telescope in the corner and said “What about that?”

And what about it? A man has to look at the stars. Even I know that.

The bedroom door opens and the Doctor walks out not wearing any clothes. His chest hair is matted down from sweat, and I can see red welts all over his stomach. Beyond him, the man is lying in bed on his side with the blankets covering all the inoffensive parts of him. Something tells me he’s a showoff in his everyday life, but I’d never be able to prove it. I meow, but the Doctor keeps making his way to the bathroom and once in there the ceiling fan drowns out any further noises I may wish to make if I wished to make any.

I do not.

The man gets out of the bed and comes into the living room. “Hey, little guy,”  he says as I point my anus at him. “Did you knock these over?” But he doesn’t sound upset. He sounds amused.

  Thousands of years ago, I was living in a pyramid waiting to die. My master was in his tomb, and my lover was named Maat. He was also waiting to die. There were several of us in the pyramid, but the other cats roamed the tunnels and halls of the structure looking for the occasional rat to eat or snake to stab. Maat and I stayed in the main chamber with our deceased god. “How can a god die?” Maat once asked me, and I didn’t know how to answer him. All I knew was we would both starve to death, and one of the other cats would eat our bodies to last a week or two longer. I licked Maat’s belly and his fur tasted like perch. From somewhere in the pyramid, I heard one of the traps snap. I knew it was Bastet. She was the most careless among us.

Back on Broadway, a street between Broad and Atwood, the man is still contemplating petting me. I have decided that if he touches me, I will bite as far down into his wrists as I can. I arch my back to give him fair warning. The apartment is so much smaller now that strangers are allowed into it. The second bedroom that had been used for storage and gym equipment now has its curtains permanently closed. 

The other Doctor moved out one day when someone named Dijon showed up and helped him pack his things. On his way out, he picked me up and cried into my belly and his tears smelled like perch. I didn’t want to think of Maat and my fallen god and past lives and future lives. I knew one day I’d be living on the moon gasping for breath, but until then, I wanted comfort with minimal interruption. Dijon said the Uber was outside, and the other Doctor put me down. When the Doctor came home, he knew immediately what happened. “How could you let him leave?” I wanted to ask how he could have pushed him away. What were numbers on a credit card compared to the stars? Compared to the way your lover’s belly tastes? I couldn’t ask anything. Even when I was revered as an ally to the divine, I could not speak. Now, I’m a pet and I defecate in a box. If I were larger, I would be able to take down bears. Your potential has no value in this world.

Perhaps not in any world.

The Doctor comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. “You want to rinse off?” The man says he’ll shower at home, but gives the Doctor a long kiss and tells him not to be a stranger. But you’re the stranger, I think. You’re the stranger. 

The Doctor sits down on the couch and picks up his phone. I jump up and knead his waist with the top of my head. I want him to acknowledge me. I want him to assure me that he would never yell at me or ignore me or love men or doughnuts or anything more than he loves me, because there are no more pyramids. There are no more sacred tombs to place me in. There are no more gods to honor.

On his phone are photos of the other Doctor, and I watch as his pointer finger moves up and down the phone. He is determined to be thorough, but careful not to tangibly engage with anything he sees. No tapping. No holding down. I look up and see him gritting his teeth. In the corner, the telescope gathers dust. I realize there are planets he will never see.

There are constellations he will never piece together, because to him, they will all just look like individual stars with no relationship to anything, let alone each other.