Five days have passed and I am still a hostage. There is a certain feeling of longing and sentiment at the back of my head when I remember my mother, probably too busy with my brothers and sisters to notice my disappearance. I tend to think about the good times in the countryside and sleep as much as possible, trapped in these cold, concrete walls, with thin layers of irritating fabric spread on the floor for me to sleep on, as if it could prevent my back from hurting, my neck from spraining. I can see no reason for such maltreatment, but I try to be good so that, apart from remembering to feed me, they pay little attention to me. I favor getting up early, when my kidnappers are sleeping, because sitting on their windowsill tends to bring back a coveted feeling of serenity and peace, long gone in my heart. That seems to be the only way for me to see the city waking up—people walking down the street, rushing like an army of ants in the city ecosystem, locked in their anthills, working hard for an unknown reason. It feels decent that they let me watch the world outside, unfamiliar and foreign, to fill up the hours of lethargy they put me in. Fascinated is the right word to describe how I feel about them all, but my situation is far from delectable. Yet, the days have to pass somehow, when sleep won’t come easily and pacing around cannot dull the ache of inertness, so even today I keep looking out at the rushing world, even when I feel their gaze on me, whispering about me to each other in a foreign language that I still struggle to recognize and understand. It is impossible to run away, the flat is on the top floor and the windows and doors are invariably locked.
Do not get me wrong, of course I tried to claw my way out, to do my best irritating them so they would get tired and throw me out or, perhaps, hand me back. I started with the simplest of ploys—ruining their stuff. However, whenever I broke one of their drinking glasses, they’d put them high up on a shelf, well out of my reach. One day I tried to destroy the furniture, claw away at the foul, dusty chairs and sofas, but then they locked me up in a foreign room, dark and bare, filled with stuff, wet and putrid, that filled me with so much dread I could not breathe for a few minutes. I tried to scream at the top of my voice, waiting for someone to hear, but there was only a high and sharp voice coming from the outside, probably telling me to shut up. That was the first time I’d ever seen my abductors argue, when Curly opened the door to the limbo I was locked in and then bellowed at Shorty for doing this to me, probably. To my further surprise, he reached out with his big palm, quite gently if I’m honest, and stroked my head for the first time. There was a spark of pleasure building up inside me, urgency to close the distance and hug him, a small flicker of hope for feeling fine and safe again, and then I remembered that he was keeping me captive so I stepped away, afraid that I could be tempted to hit him. He looked way stronger than me and I was frightened he would give the punch back. When I was curled up trying to sleep, waiting for the numbing darkness to come, this feeling of warmth and a blink of light appeared again at the back of my head, and I tried to push it away and remind myself of how wrong and inhumane it was to keep someone as defenseless and unprotesting as me here. My family did not possess anything valuable, I felt like the only reason I had been taken away was because of their sick, aesthetic pleasure. When everything got dark under my eyelids, I wondered whose gloomy voice kept whispering at the back of my head that I was never going to get away.
When the morning comes and I find fresh food and water for me in the usual place, I can’t help but feel grateful. When this emotion appears, I try to stay away from Curly in the kitchen, humming a song in his language that I do not know while he prepares the food for his comrades, although usually I just sit on the furthest chair and watch him. Perhaps his unusually big, green eyes are the reason, maybe it is his deep, slow voice that he sometimes talks to me in, even if he knows I cannot understand him, but I value his company more and more. It is not that I appreciate it, oh no, that would be wrong, since he is one of them, but despite his bulkiness and the fact that he is the biggest one of them, there is a hint of something genuine in the way he approaches me. When he disappears from my sight, I feel vulnerable since I can see how he influences the others, and I suspect the kidnapping was his idea. He looks as if he feels guilty sometimes, but then he is the one to protect me when they try to touch me or irritate me just for the pleasure of seeing me squirm. Curly is the only one who gives me a whiff of equality amongst them.
Baldy is probably the worst of them all, and I am afraid of him the most. There was this dark day, after a few weeks, when he tied me up and dragged me outside of the flat for his own sadistic pleasure, giving me the hope that I could struggle away and run for my freedom, only to adjust the harness around my body and almost crush my lungs. Who found me? Of course, it was Curly, with a brown bag of groceries in his hands, running up to me, taking me back to the flat and scratching my head again with those big and clumsy fingers of his. The only explanation I have for it now is that I was too frightened and in a high state of shock to react and rebel against it. Funny thing, unlike Shorty and Baldy, he rarely screamed, only when he got really exasperated with their actions; however, when he did, there was this sense of power and authority radiating. That day, with Baldy, was the first time when I felt first warm feeling towards him; maybe I hated him a little less.
The days creep by and nothing seems to change. White flakes of snow appear outside the window, washing and blurring my last-lingering memories of summer, lazy days when I could sleep on the hay with all of my brothers and sisters. I struggle to remember my mother’s eyes; I can’t remember who my father was. Deep inside my skin I can feel the temperature changing, sometimes my skin is itching with the need to stay warmer, I miss the crackling of the fireplace from my childhood, torn away so cruelly from me. There is no need to fill myself up with memories, all they do is torment me, haunt me in my dreams, making me toss and turn in the night, waking me up at random hours. More often than not I catch myself thinking about running to Curly, using his body heat to wash it all away, I consider drowning myself in this artificial feeling of care and affection I sometimes notice in how he treats me. He is home for the longest periods of time, surrounds himself with papers full of strange and foreign columns of signs, usually circled with colors; they tend to exhaust him, but then he hides it so well from the rest of them. There is always a cup of tea within arm’s reach, and when it was all still new to me, I used to knock it over, only to irritate him, but I could see how he never snapped at me, and the action made him ever more drained, so I stopped altogether. And yes, I admit, I felt sorry for him.
Then there was that moment when I swallowed my pride. It was the fourth or fifth day of unrelenting snow; no people passing down the street, TV constantly on, red line on the bottom of the screen, moving, probably announcing that they should stay at home. Shorty made tea, trying not to let Baldy distract him, laughing out loud; Curly looked entirely done in, sitting on the couch and playing with the coiled strands of his hair, Darky was probably still sleeping. It all seemed so domestic and sweet that I let myself drown in the atmosphere of a lazy day, approached the boy sitting on the couch slowly and sat next to him. Our eyes met, for a moment he looked confused, distant, then he smiled, the dimples in his cheek deep, making him look five years younger. He stroked my head, and I let myself sit on his lap to have him scratch my ears. The look on Shorty and Baldy’s faces was unforgettable, the way their eyes became as big as my bowls, so it was worth it. One of them rushed, probably to wake Darky up, the other one sat next to us, shyly touching me as well. Warmth overwhelmed me, the feeling of finally being able to let go and feel loved again, so there it was, I let this long and deep purr out, curled my tail under my paws and started kneading his lap in exchange for such a good treatment. Then there were four pairs of hands on me, spaces between us kept getting smaller, I luxuriated in the pleasure they were so intent on giving me. There are days when I still miss my old family, think about chasing mice and fighting for fun on the haystacks, but then there is my new one, not as bad as I thought at first, which loves me as well.
Zuzanna Szmyt-Nowakowska