the empty road - 28. the cat

by bofa xesjum

part twenty-eight of forty

for previous chapter, click here

to begin at the beginning, click here

remember. the cat. the director remembered. the cat he killed. he was six years old. already regarded as a nasty child. he killed the cat on an impulse. there were people - grownups - in the next room. with luck, he could have gotten away with it. he pushed the cat’s face into a fat sofa pillow. and it hardly made a sound - hardly being the operative word. but aunt cynthia, who heard and saw everything, heard the cat whimper. what is that dreadful child doing to that animal, aunt cynthia exclaimed testilly. that was the way of it - people just could not mind their own business. and then even when they did, you could count on bad luck to step in. so now, more than fifty years later, bad luck and busybodies were doing their worst again. he had been branded with the mark of cain ever since the death of the wretched cat. he would never know peace, and be hounded to the ends of the earth by the righteous ones. dragged before the laughing shouting world, and exhibited as the model of eternal perfidy, as if he were unique. he closed his eyes - when he opened them he hoped to be sitting in the chair by the family pool. next