tr. Lena Hasell
When I woke up, the terrace floorboards were green. Some sort of moss. It looked intensely surreal. Thinking I was dreaming, I went back to sleep. A few hours later it had rained, and the green vanished. I pondered if it had been there to begin with, or just in my dream. By noon it reappeared suddenly, as did three toads.
Luna really wanted to go out—you know how she can be—but I was afraid those animals could be toxic to her and kept the door closed. One hour later there were five of them sitting there. I took a few pictures, emailed them to Amari. He, being a biologist and all, might be able to give me advice. I received the reply: “Exotic. Don’t belong here. Exterminate.”
I had never killed an animal. Except for that mouse, long ago. That terrifying and insane ritual. Those damn boys. Built a pyre of some sorts and held trial. She must have suffered terribly. Still, the squeaking was as tiny as the animal itself. I got sick and walked off. For some time, I was made fun of over this.
I conducted some research. Salty water would deter them. There was a fast and painless working spray, but not a salespoint in the area. Ordering it would take a few days.
Out of curiosity, I tapped one with a wooden spoon. He jumped a few inches and remained there with those empty eyes. The others didn’t seem to have noticed a thing. I could smash its brain. Weird, those animals. How they just sat there, as if they would just let me slaughter them. Stupid, and just as sad.
Once inside, I warmed my hands on Luna. I still talk to her as if she were a baby. Even more than when you were here. She’s the only thing left of you. I ask myself whether she thinks of you, whether she misses you.
The next morning there was a thick fog. Milky rainclouds hung around the building like a cloak, pushing against the windows. I checked the terrace swiftly. The toads were still there, about ten by now.
During the afternoon I napped for an hour. When I woke up again, I saw spatters of blood on the floor. Pawprints from a cat, too. I called Luna to me. Then, I felt something slimy beneath the sole of my foot. I bent forward and saw a piece of toad. Other bloody remains were a little further away. With the mist, one of them must have snuck into the house. It was a stupid move of me not to pay attention to that.
In front of the bathroom door, which was ajar, I found a small puddle of vomit. My heart in an iron fist, I pushed it entirely open. Luna was on the bathroom rug in front of the shower. With glassy eyes. She was having trouble breathing and seemed to need to vomit again.
The emergency veterinarian arrived on the scene within the hour. I showed him the pictures of the toads, and what Amari had said about them. He confirmed this and said that some people import them and breed them because of their hallucinogenic effects. But for the cat, it was dangerous, and possibly even deadly.
He took Luna with him to monitor her for a few days. I could come by the next day.
As soon as he was gone, I dropped myself onto the couch. Pounds and pounds of stress and fatigue pulled me down. I thought about the time we adopted her at the animal shelter. How sweet she had been from the first moment. She came to rub her head against us and it felt as if we were predestined for each other. How fast we bonded, the three of us. How beautiful it was, and how it seemed like it would last forever.
I should have smashed their brains. All of them. Or stuffed them in a bag, into the bin, to just suffocate.
And then I did something gruesome. All of a sudden it seemed like I was someone else. A shadow rising up from my own body just went her own way.
An hour later, I realized something had happened there on the terrace, that I had done something. I went to look. The chopped-up cadavers, mashed and ripped open. The fork leaning on the fence, blood on the handle. I glared at it for a couple of moments and turned away, hoping it might go away again.
The following morning, I had planned to arrive at the animal hospital at their opening hour. On the subway I figured how it would go. She would be feeling better already, and happy to see me. The vet would smile and tell me it had been a false alarm. We would relax, make some jokes, and I would spontaneously blurt out things out of pure relief and happiness, then I’d be sitting down on the subway with Luna in her carrier, everything back to normal.
When I walked in, he was still cleaning the examination table. Without looking at me, he invited me to take a chair. While he sat down himself, he flipped through a small folder, put it away, jotted something down on his calendar and blankly stared into space for a moment. Then he placed his elbows on his desk and folded his hands.
“I am afraid I have some bad news,” He said. “She passed away during the night. I was about to call you.”
He left me alone with her for a bit. It was like she was sleeping. The same way she had been sleeping at home so often. Body and paws sprawled out, not a care in the world, and probably waking up any time soon. I petted her and spoke, as usual. But her belly didn’t move up and down anymore. So often I had seen it, her trapped in such a deep sleep it scared me a bit; up and down, up and down, breathing stable, all good.
It wasn’t like that anymore.
Poor little thing, how she laid there, so still. All those years I was so afraid of losing her. And suddenly, out of thin air, it just happened. Suddenly, it was done.
On the subway I sit with my hands tucked underneath my legs, staring in front of me. Everything around me feels unfamiliar, cold and cruel. I think about how empty the house is going to be. How I will arrive there, feeling estranged, at that abandoned house, echoing as if there is no furniture at all. That feeling I know all too well, from when I lost you. That desert that I have to cross again, the fight that awaits me.
While I walk through the house, I hear the floor squeak. I never used to hear that before. Sometimes I stay seated because I don’t want to hear that miserable squeaking anymore.
Her beds, her bowls. All those empty spaces. It hurts to look at them. All that time tears are trying to break through my face. It is like with you. When I looked at our bed, your desk, your drawing table, all your stuff, all those projects you never got to finish. It saddens me deeply, those interrupted lives, and to think it might happen to me one day. That I as well, will leave such a terrible void.
I feel alone, I feel so miserably alone. And it is so, so quiet. I want to smash it to pieces, that silence.
Then I try to shift back into gear. The reality remains around me still, it wants to pierce through, but I block it. I try to work, but my shoulders weigh a ton. I keep my hands in front of my eyes and rub my face. I inhale deeply a few times. Then I walk onto the terrace. A few new toads are sitting there. They hop back and forth, or are sitting still. The cadavers of the previous ones are still laying there, but they don’t even seem to notice them.
I look at the biggest and fattest one of the lot, that is sitting in the middle of the terrace. Those unsettling, bulging eyes. He’s got death itself in his eyes. The fog is returning, the thick one from the day before will be back very soon. Just as much as death and those empty spaces. All those dead and all those empty spaces, and me alone.
Wim Lankriet is a Belgian fiction writer and music composer. He wrote his first stories in early 2023, and published in De Optimist, Papieren Helden, Tijdschrift SKUT and Portulaan. Currently, he is also working on a first novel.
Lena Hasell is an American-based Flemish translator specializing in English and Dutch. With roots in Belgian culture and a passion for fiction, she helps writers expand their reach through tone-sensitive and nuanced translations.