• written winter 23/24'
• college assignment
• i still like it, though- finishing something big feels good

Sitting around all day was starting to lose its novelty. The apartment was so cheap and unfurnished it must have looked like a trap house or torture chamber, truly it was more like a dog kennel. She felt useless, slightly concerned about the state of her mind after so long with such little stimulation, and deeply bored- dizzy from the endless small circles paced around the cage. The past eleven months Marin has spent almost entirely inside of her apartment; groceries get delivered biweekly, freelance photo editing covers expenses well enough, and rent is paid automatically each month by her father (which is also the extent of their contact). She can find no reason to leave, especially with the guarantee of discomfort upon doing so, but her brain has accumulated too heavy a fog to function. The ceiling fan creaked in slow circles overhead, the pitch like a dog getting periodically kicked aside by some cruel owner- this was the soundtrack of her recent past and foreseeable future.

Glassy eyed and hunched over her small desktop computer, photoshopping a recently removed uncle out of someone’s wedding pictures, Marin thought of some of the last conversations she’d had in college, over a year ago now; a drunk girl with the wrong apartment number that she’d yelled “Go away!” at through the door, a phone call with her landlord, another with her dad, a taxi driver insisting he hadn’t seen anyone try to get into the cab behind her. Nothing revolutionary, nothing worth missing. She remembered bits of a conversation with a professor she’d had her final day before dropping out, who kind of looked like the man she was currently covering up in the photo, his lecture had derailed into a tangential argument with a few students over generational discrepancies- despite being a biology course: “Friendship is on a decline,” the professor had lamented, “Modern technology raises self-absorbed, self-important children who grow up and can’t understand why they are alone and don’t do anything to change anything. I don’t know if they ever had a chance. You all here are only so far removed from that; I already see the effects of modern technology all over your faces.” He’d stood smugly behind his lectern, which seemingly ascended him above this “mark of the beast” he described seeing in his students. “Young people just look like that,” someone had replied, “Dissatisfied and lonely, isn’t that what, like, every coming-of-age movie is about? It’s just different, don’t you think people thought the Industrial Revolution would turn us into cyborgs or something?” This remark had come from a seat somewhere behind Marin, she remembered hearing that nasal voice at least once a class. She also remembered the feeling of her own perpetually shut mouth. She felt it now, too, in the bite marks lining the insides of her cheeks; she could taste its’ sour. The memory agitated her- it was embarrassing that she was even thinking about it; she had gone home that night and tried to see the mark of modern technology in her reflection, failing to find anything. The loneliness and dissatisfaction she hadn’t had to look hard for at all. She pushed the thought aside, but she had to keep going- her new online therapist suggested that her airy detachment from reality may be due to a detachment from self, and that she should do some “soul searching”- so far, her reflections had left her feeling annoyed and profoundly alone, not enlightened. Given any alternative to trying pills, she would try to make it work- she was sick of being treated as though she were emotionally stunted, like she belonged in an asylum. She thought of straight jackets and solitary confinement, despairing at how hypothetically comforting they seemed. No doctor had tried something so severe with her, just encourage different colored little pills like a car salesman: “This one helps with social confidence, and this one makes shadows less ominous. This one gets great mileage in the city.”

Refocusing, her mind returned to the mark of the beast. She attempted to recall the first time in her life she used a computer, or a phone, but thinking of the implications of her own laptop poisoning her at this very moment derailed her into a rather short spiral ending in suspicion of the online therapist, who she’d first met with two weeks ago on a pay-per-minute voice call. How could Marin know she really exists? Who was on the opposite end, in that clickity static? A human? A qualified medical practitioner? Marin hadn’t even thought to ask for a name while signing up, but now felt as though information had been purposefully and maliciously concealed from her, she may as well have been spilling her heart out to a robot the past couple of weeks. This seemed to happen regularly. She thought about how we are all alone in this world and wondered how trust could be real, if it is a one-sided illusion. That nerve-riddled evening was spent chain smoking with every window shut and locked (she used to get complaints about the smell, and the fire hazard, but guessed her new neighbors must finally be fellow smokers- her complex had a high turnover rate for tenants, anyways).

Marin had spent the last few nights more awake than usual, frozen in the corner of her room- the farthest she can get from the door, which had been the source of insistent scratching and thudding each evening. This had been interrupting not only her work, but her capacity for personal reflection. She was struggling to properly prepare her mind for tomorrow’s hypnotherapy session, her latest channel of homeopathy. How can one heal oneself when sleep deprived? The first time the disturbance occurred she thought she was getting robbed, the second time, maybe experiencing sleep paralysis induced hallucinations, or human trafficking. Recently though, looking at the shifting light seeping out from under her front door, she ashamedly realized it may just be a cat. Possibly a raccoon, but most likely a cat. Looking back now, it did meow more than other nighttime horrors and demons of her past. She waited until morning and, once the noise had stopped for a while, quickly cracked open the door just enough to accommodate a small bowl of water to be left outside.

Apparently, the water was unsatisfactory. Marin was entirely exhausted by the time the sun set, she hadn’t even begun to process today’s therapy progress, and the cat had returned to moan and paw at her door despite the morning’s offering- ‘this is a test by the universe’, she thought, ‘unwanted visitors’. She stared into the darkness at the sliver of light, questioning why she’s been letting a stray cat ruin her nights- it probably couldn’t hurt her, maybe it needed a friend, too. Then, suddenly overcome with a sense of empowerment at that thought, Marin shook off her sheets and tip-toed to the front door; it had, in an instant, become her sole responsibility and goal to save the cat. Slowly cracking the door ajar, she peaked out; she may as well have been in an entirely different building than the one she remembered leasing from, over a year ago now, the hallway was so empty and unfamiliar. For some reason, not seeing anyone made her discomfort worse- she thought of where someone could be hiding and, as always, the options were innumerable and terrifying. The alternative of being entirely abandoned and left for rot felt pressingly likely as well. Glancing down, a shadowy tail tip swayed into her view. Everything else was different shades of dark, vaguely blurring together to resemble an apartment complex, but the tail was a frizzy break in the gloom; she watched, unblinking, its’ lazy sway. She felt a soft push on the door as the cat tried to make its way into her apartment, she let it. With agonizingly slow caution, the cat entered as if sneaking in and jumped when the door was hastily slammed shut behind it, the haze cleared. “Sorry!” Marin whispered, sliding the lock into place and flicking on the rarely used overhead light. A small grey tabby stared at her from a few feet away, it was too skinny, and had no fur on half its forehead and a scraggly whiteish tail. Trying to shake off the residual unease of exposure, she wondered about its’ life story, what led it here to her. “You’re cute…” She stooped down and shuffled toward the cat, causing it to scamper silently out of reach. Disoriented and exhausted, a bowl of plain boiled chicken and a few old newspapers were clumsily gathered and set out on the faux-wood panel floor, and Marin soon slept hard on top of the bed covers for the few remaining hours before her alarm.

Not having gotten anywhere near the twelve recommended hours of sleep, she did what little else she could to prepare for her hypnotherapy session. The previous appointments had been fairly straight forward, the practitioner’s method was an experimental combination of palm reading adjacent future seeing and classical “watch the swinging pendulum” hypnosis. She was instructed to have as empty of a mind as possible by each meetings’ start, simple. The newspaper needed replacing, but the cat had eaten and was sleeping with a fat, bloated belly on a pile of dirty laundry in the closet. This had caused a minor panic when she woke up thinking the cat had disappeared or escaped or had never been real, it was just sleeping out of sight. The cat relaxing in what must’ve been such a strange, unaccustomed place was kind of astonishing to Marin, she tried to emulate that ease.

Dr. Murbid arrived twelve minutes late and kept the door open for far too long on his way in to extinguish a cigarette on the bottom of his shoe, Marin had asked him kindly not to do this each time he’d visited and did so again now: “Could you be a bit quicker with the door, doctor? You know how I am…” She trailed off, pondering how could she explain herself without sounding psychotic, but Dr. Murbid grunted in what she had to take as understanding. The doctor wasn’t much for conversation, as explained on his website he ‘prefers to focus on spiritual communication’. They sat across from one another at Marin’s round two-person dinner table, the old doctor gave her a long look, shut his eyes, and nodded. Shifting in her seat, Marin closed her eyes as well and put her hands face-up on the tabletop, clammy.

“You have experienced a change in routine,” the doctor announced into the still air, his fingertips hovering lightly over Marins upturned hands, “You did not practice the suggested amount of sleep.” Marin flushed, quickly rambling off an excuse and feeling like she got caught doing something naughty. She mentally reprimanded herself for doubting Dr. Murbid’s abilities; ‘of course he would know I wasn’t fully prepared, that’s why he’s the doctor and I am the patient.’ It was intimidating what one could apparently learn from the palm. She felt foolish and almost cracked an eye open to peak at the doctor’s expression, but chickened out, only glimpsing the water glass sat between them and bringing a hand partially up, to rub tired eyes, before aborting that effort also.

Dr. Murbid clucked his tongue, tsking her; “You will have to complete the session regardless. Please remember the nonrefundable commitment you have made to bettering your spiritual health through these meetings. You’re lucky lack of sleep is the least destructive form of negligence in our typical routine, your hypnosis should go smoothly as usual.” He scribbled down a payment note and slid it across the tabletop, there was an added fee for ill-preparedness.

“Of course, thank you for your understanding doctor.” Marin got up to retrieve her wallet, three hundred and fifty-seven dollars were pushed back with the note. The two prior visits with Dr. Murbid had been spent in disorientation goggles that made her feel drunk and rendered the pendulum nearly incomprehensible. The second time, a straitjacket was introduced into the mix as well (forced cuddling of oneself decreases turbulence between the body and mind, and increases capacity for targeted visual focus, so she was told). The verdict on the effectiveness of these meetings was still out, and third time’s a charm so today’s meeting was subject to high expectations.

“Well, let us begin, then.” Dr. Murbid grunted, “May you please open your eyes and drink this water, then we shall continue on the couch. Hydration is a key to the gateway between you and ascendence.” Marin opened her eyes just as the doctor’s hand was coming away from the glass, she promptly gulped down the water, some dribbling down her chin. Marin felt less of an immediate effect this time, she laid on her back with her hands folded on her stomach and stared soberly at the pendulum swaying back and forth, back and forth, directly in front of her face. Her focus kept shifting unintentionally to the door, reassuring the state of its lock, then to the hairy, sun-spotted, wrinkled hand from which the pendulum slowly swung. This went on for some time; a heavy feeling of disappointment began to creep into Marin’s chest at the possibility of another failure, she began to space out as the weight spread throughout her body. Feeling vertigo despite laying down, she tried to embrace the unsteadying drift.

“Focus on the pendulum, Mary.” Dr. Murbid reminded, shushing her when she opened her mouth to protest this concerning misidentification, “Just focus on the swinging of the pendulum. You are lulled by it. You are shifting levels of consciousness. You are feeling opened and soothed.” Breaking out in a cold sweat, Marin strained to unblur her vision but was unable. She found she could no longer turn her head or move anything at all- it must finally be working. Her thoughts came all at once but simultaneously she thought of nothing. The idea of ego death echoed in her mind, but it felt impossible to pull anything to the forefront of her attention, even such things she thought she’d really craved just half an hour ago. Spurred on by Dr. Murbid’s constant hum of questions and demands, she was overwhelmed and, strangely, slightly constipated as her mind continued to race and her consciousness became questionable.

“Who is the cat? Your life is soon to take an unexpected turn, you feel invincible. Someone is looking out for you. Why do you continue to fail?” His words were becoming confusing, jumbled background noise; “How did you get that cat?” Her awake self and dream self sporadically phased in and out of singularity. “What did that cat tell you?” The pendulum seemed to be swinging closer, it was going to hit her. She couldn’t flinch away as it came at her again and again, she felt the rumble of a protest in her throat, but no real words came out. Marin felt unable to inhale and extremely dizzy, even her insides spun, her brain trying to escape its spinal cord tether. She spun into a discomforting unconsciousness. After the allotted hour, Dr. Murbid tucked away his pendulum, stretched, and gathered his things; he poured the backwash of Marin’s glass into the cat’s water bowl, tucked the glass itself into his inner coat pocket, and left without latching the door.

Marin awoke seventeen hours later to the smell of puke and a cool breeze, she rested in a groggy daze with glassy, strained eyes and highly dilated pupils. Staring at a strange new crusty stain on the coffee table, she simultaneously felt as though she was in a ginormous shell of her body and, somehow, also watching herself lying on the couch from afar. She felt peaceful and earnestly considered sleeping forever, she already felt a million times better.

Abruptly seizing into full consciousness with a gasp that nearly strangled her, she realized the meaning of the breeze and with that reality came briefly and harshly back to her- open door, cat vomit, a possible case of amnesia. Even her anxieties felt sedated, it was hard to muster up the energy to care despite their ominous looming in the back of her mind. As quickly as she could manage, which was not very, Marin stumbled across the room to close and lock the door, stomach cramping with nausea from all the movement. She noted the cat asleep on the floor next to a puddle of its own vomit and hoped it wasn’t dead. The stuff was also on the table, and her shirt, and the couch… maybe it wasn’t just the cat’s. Feeling as though in a dream, or heaven, she abruptly returned to the sofa and passed out again.

The second awakening brought with it a more immediate onset of dread as well as a pounding headache she could feel in the roots of her teeth. Sitting upright set her tranquilized muscles aflame, she checked the time- she’d slept at least another eight hours- before remembering the cat, which had at some point moved onto the couch’s armrest where it snoozed on. Not dead, at least. A sour smell came from her own body, shirt soiled with day old vomit, which she now realized was definitely her own, and damp with sickly sweat. Marin conjured what she could of the events that brought her to this point but was at a complete loss like she had never experienced before, the last thing she retained was laying down to watch Dr. Murbid’s pendulum. The doctor had not sent any messages regarding the appointment she missed while asleep, she swore she had booked back-to-back. In fact, she wasn’t able to contact him herself either; his phone number had been disconnected. Marin worried what off putting things she may have done while out to drive away even a hypnotist.

It took a few months for Marin to recover from her final appointment with Dr. Murbid, her first two sessions had not left her nearly so incapacitated, but she did feel a grand shift within herself after the events of that fated third visit. Looking back now, the day struck her as profoundly strange, but the positive effects she’d been feeling pushed any concern away. She was currently riding the high of taking down all the window coverings in the apartment.

The day of their fifth planned meeting (not excluding the missed fourth appointment) Marin waited with little expectation for Dr. Murbid’s appearance, or even acknowledgement, and her hunch about his abandonment was unsurprisingly confirmed. It felt like the brief, fleeting visit of a guardian angel had been bestowed upon her, like the universe itself had empathized with her. Despite this, she made a vague post online claiming to have moved, even including a fake new address and a photo she’d edited to read her name above the unit number. Though he may have helped, Marin was terrified of the thought that Dr. Murbid knew where she lived (she’d ordered a rape kit online to ensure he hadn’t sold her whereabouts during her rebirthing blackout- it came back negative), and progress only happens so fast. She had also started leaving her door cracked open, still anchored by a sliding chain lock, so that the cat could come and go as it pleased and so she could keep smoking without suffocating them both. ‘This is me getting better,’ she repeatedly thought, convincing herself of the statement’s truth. Unfortunately, the presence of an ugly, homeless, mongrel cat had aided her more effectively than expensive holistic therapy had been able to in years. She found comfort in it like nothing she’d ever known. Marin felt deeply connected with the grungy little cat, it had been there with her through her entire, life-changing hypnotherapy session. Nobody had ever been so loyal. Perhaps this was how it was repaying her for taking it into her care. The cat, with its soothing disposition and healing spirit, had practically become her new doctor.

After six months of intensive, exclusive cat therapy, Marin felt great pride in her progress and began to view recovery as a competition in which she was determined to dominate. During this time, she had produced thousands of journal entries, enough to compile a fuzzy biography of her life, detailing everything she knew she’d experienced from birth to now. Reflection was the only useful advice from her last hack therapist. There were some years with only a couple pages, some with notebooks dedicated entirely to them, and then there was her daily log of emotions and progress with leaving the house.

The period in which she began experiencing abnormal anxiety was twelve, puberty, and by fifteen she developed a constant fear of being stalked by a group of unsuspecting individuals. These people, mostly men, followed her in the street and watched her from afar in public, they lurked in the shadows of her neighborhood at night and saw everything she did online, everyone she spoke to, and everywhere she went. She’d never been able to understand their motive, or the lack of concern about them held by those around her, but the distress they instilled in her was inescapable and all consuming. They wanted to “get her” because she “had something”, that was about as clearly as she could articulate the feeling even now. Her life devolved into an obsession with privacy, she became distant and solitary, graduating high school with no one to sign her yearbook and starting university in a completely different state. Still, nothing got the stalkers to let up. She began thinking her father may have something to do with it, he began thinking she’d lost it. She was completely alone, no longer willing to risk picking up the phone or making a quick trip to the convenience store. The men’s persistence was godlike in nature, there had even been times she had believed they had access to her thoughts. Recollecting all this made her wish she’d been a drug addict, or bipolar, anything to reassure her she hadn’t become a complete lunatic.

Doctor Cat had aided her throughout this autobiographical endeavor, of course; it kept her company and grounded her in reality with a firmness she hadn’t ever had in her adult life. When she felt her memories pulling her off the edge Doctor was there to bring her back. She found immense success in speaking to another living being, the cat was a fantastic listener and very nonjudgemental- hard qualities to find in a therapist, Doctor never oversteps. Throughout the day the cat would come and go; for the first time since she’d began her hermitage, she envied that kind of freedom and felt as though that same, sweet release was just out of reach for herself. This time she would grab it, no asking for permission or waiting to be “ready”, Doctor didn’t wait to be told and no longer would she. Having Doctor by her side made Marin feel truly untouchable, like the cat was the missing piece to her safety all along; maybe the “something” she had was simply being alone, and now that she had a partner in life no one would come looking for her to steal her solitude.

And so, it was decided that, after nearly two full years of isolation, Marin would find herself a real, on-location job. No more photo manipulating for cheap strangers on the internet. She would take life in her fist and shake it into submission, she’d be the cat sleeping comfortably in a foreign place.

The search was troublesome, she had almost no working experience and horribly rough interview skills (people skills as a whole, really). Counterproductive to her goals, each rejection felt like a sigh of relief, a dodged bullet. She wanted badly to take her job-search strife as a sign that she was making a mistake, that maybe she was trying to attain a lifestyle not meant for her. Applying to positions online felt almost like a game, an idle simulation of fake companies, fake surveys, and fake hiring agents. She probably filled out hundreds of forms during her search out of the pure entertainment of upselling oneself and giving long winded answers to shallow personal questions like “What makes you the perfect choice for this position?” or “Have you completed any higher education?”

Eventually, one of the phone calls she received from a potential employer actually led to something other than a fruitless half-hour chit chat- a set date for an in-person interview, one week from then. Marin felt assaulted by the new presence of a countdown, she’d fully expected another dead-end conversation and wasn’t as thrilled as she thought she should be about the opportunity. The sudden weight on her shoulders was unwelcomingly familiar, and nauseating.

Marin meticulously planned out the day of her interview, attempting to make herself as conspicuous as possible: wide brimmed hat, facemask, a trench coat to cover her interview clothes, a sweater to replace the trench coat on the journey back home. Just one pair of shoes, which concerned her, but what could she do? She had limited resources. She would also bring her dad’s old briefcase, to look professionally appealing. Doctor Cat would walk the short distance from the apartment to the usual line of taxis outside, upon hailing one she would instruct the driver to take a specific and intentionally convoluted path to the office’s address (which would normally be six minutes away but, due to the circumstances, would become a twenty minute drive), then she would remover her coat and, hopefully, smoke a cigarette and eat a mint or two, for nerves. Upon arrival, and parking as close as possible to the building’s entrance, she would simply enter, interview, ditch the coat, don the sweater, and make the trek back home in a similar fashion.

Having to go the majority of the ordeal without Doctor was highly concerning, so much so that Marin considered standing up the interview nearly as much as she considered the intricate details of the event. She continuously reminded herself that the mere presence of Doctor Cat in her life would keep away unwanted followers- soul bondedness doesn’t just disappear when one soul has left the room, after all.

She accidentally submitted her outline for success to a woman who’d paid to have her “blemishes removed, and curves enhanced” in her gaudy vacation photos from Greece; Marin’s final gig as a freelance photoshop artist and this was the legacy she would leave behind, anxious dreams of something more fulfilling.

So far, things were going fine- according to plan enough. The first leg of the trip, apartment to taxi, had a hang up so nerve wracking Marin nearly bailed out instantly- there were no taxis on the curb. Jittering at the open end of the complex’s hallway, Marin watched the road as if manifesting a car there, Doctor making semi-circles at her feet. Fortunately, she hadn’t run into, or even heard, any of her neighbors, she thanked the working world for their decisively early schedules. Standing there, she felt like a tiny spec threatened by the wind to be picked up and carried away, lost forever in the sky’s vastness.

Three long minutes pass and a cab finally, miraculously pulls into view- when she gets in, after frantically hailing the driver, she’s panting, heart racing, though she had only had to walk a few feet. Despite all of this, within a few minutes of the car ride Marin was able to calm herself with a smoke and get settled with the fact that her journey is underway. She closed her eyes and imagined being back in the apartment, the bumps and whines from the road making escape difficult, but it was better than watching the windows. She finished the pack and unintentionally left her trench coat in the back seat on her way out- loss was less terrifying than change, at least.

The interview itself Marin felt barely present for, although she did remember shaking multiple sturdy hands on the way out and felt that was a good sign. While waiting to catch a cab home, she felt no rush standing outside of the office, out in the open. She felt less than nothing, just the chill breeze. All that occupied her thoughts was seeing Doctor at home, wondering where it would be waiting for her, what she would feed it, what it did while she was away. A cab came and she was pleasantly surprised to find her coat crumpled on the floorboards, though she noted a different driver than before. She never checked the cab numbers, hadn’t thought to.

On her way home the new driver kindly bummed her a cigarette and kept the windows cracked. The sun was getting low, she savored the wind whipping her hair around and how alive it made her feel. She thought of following Doctor outside some day and seeing where the cat goes off to on its own, if it has any friends. The artificial, burnt-smelling heat she was accustomed to from her apartment’s air conditioning unit was stripped of all its comfort by just this short while under the sun. She felt elated, her every atom thanking her for her resilience; she was finally, truly overcoming all that had kept her hidden away. The rearview mirror was adjusted just slightly and briefly blinded her with the remaining daylight, even through the grate separating her and the driver, who stoically eyed the hatchback taking its fifth consecutive turn behind them as they pulled into a rather vacant looking apartment complex.