Capítulo 3: P1: RETURN TO THE VILLAGE
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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀┋ P1: RETURN TO THE VILLAGE ┋
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The heat of the sun was hotter in his hometown, as Jhon already guessed.
If it weren't for the window on his side, and the light clothing he had decided to wear, he was sure he would be suffocating between so many suitcases and the stormy summer heat.
He remembered all too well that same melting sensation in the car on his way to his old elementary school but, to this day, even after five years, it was still unbearable. That was satisfyingly nostalgic for him.....
Despite everything, Jhon was sure he had made the best decision of his life: to return to his hometown on a college scholarship.
He still remembered how, before he had even taken the bus out of his home, his father had refused to support him until the very last moment when he got on the bus.
He feared that if they recognized his son they would track him down and come looking for him, but he promised him that he would never say anything and that he would make a good life for himself by focusing on his studies from now on.
Ignoring his father's gestures, and just as he was turning around to get into his seat on the bus, some new shoes were thrown at him, which he luckily dodged; this time, however, his father looked him in the eye, silently, and said nothing.
But his face, that face that only a father knows how to express when he sees his son leaving to, perhaps, never see him again... it said it all. And without another word, they said goodbye in silence. Walking away little by little... from the last he would see of his father for a long time.
Jhon still held it in his hands: the shoes had been put away in a bag, they were brand new. Without any dirt, without looking cheap and even with his initial stitched on the sides... they made his father look like the father he had always been, the one he knew better after running away from home with him that stormy night.
His father was a man of few words and a grumpy man but, deep down, he knew that they cared for each other without telling each other. Jhon let out a sigh, and silently thanked him for the kind gesture he hadn't received from him in a long time.
The bus he was on passed by different roads, and as if he could see himself in his childhood, he could recognize the same streets and cities he had passed when they first left home, just as if he could retrieve his past memories through the window.
His seat was warm, and the comfort provided by the safety of the vehicle made him laugh a little at his nerves but he finally sighed.
Now, and with a good smile, he could allow himself to relax.
With no more worries about food, studies, or a place to rest, he had managed to succeed by earning the scholarship with his grades and the intelligence he had garnered throughout his high school years at different schools.
Wherever he went, at first, he just wanted to be away from his father. That had been his thought for much of his adolescence because of the resentment he had held for him, driven more by the chaotic environment from which his father had never separated himself than by the chaotic environment in which he had been living.
In the time they had spent away in other cities, he learned many things; but, they took away much of his childhood: the cheap labor work, going out to sell candy on the street, looking for ways to get money from wherever he could to help his father pay off loans and debts; just as if he had inherited them at his young age....
And finally, as if he could see himself reflected in his image as a child... he could see him disappear, leaving behind in oblivion all the damage that he had kept inside him. And that now, made him see the situation in a different way, but no matter what, he went ahead, fighting to create a new lifestyle: one that no one would ever take away from him.
***
With his hands full of his suitcases, and a brochure showing him the map of his city, he was walking around his hometown looking for the place where he would live in rent from now on thanks to the scholarship that would cover all the student's expenses.
He had noticed that his appearance possibly stood out, despite the fact that he had always lived in cheap clothes. He was a young man of 18 dressed in a white shirt and pants that were somewhat loose fitting along with different suitcases that he carried from hand to hand; all that inherited from his father, not counting the new shoes that he would not have put on yet so as not to get them dirty so quickly. His dark hair was bigger than he usually let it grow, since he didn't have time to go to the hairdresser's, so it would be one of the first things he planned to do as soon as he left the suitcases at his new home.
And when he arrived, he found it much better than his father had left it five years ago. He had rented his old house.
A few days ago, he had looked in a yellow phone book for the number of the house his father had previously owned, of which he had left the papers to a neighbor who now owned the place. He spoke for him on the phone, which fortunately was the same one, and after a short conversation and with the good fortune that he and his wife were going on a trip to the other continent, the place would be available for rent.
He left the suitcases at the door of the house and went to the courtyard to look for the key that the owners had hidden for this one. He carefully approached one of the flower pots and dug under it, finding what he was looking for quickly.
At that moment, a strong breeze whipped against his body making him fall and shaking all the plants in the yard in turn. Jhon stood up laughing slightly, after remembering those sudden strong winds that made him fall as well in his childhood.
And as if his mind clouded over, he began to remember the sensation of hearing a noise coming with the wind every time it passed. Gradually, the image in his mind began to clear, and a black figure appeared enjoying the cold breeze with a meow, as if laughing innocently as he was.
His childlike laughter with the meowing mingled in his mind and little by little the illusion of the cat in front of him disappeared.
Following that, and looking at the bush at the end of the courtyard that caught his attention by a slight movement inside it, he could remember something else.
Its shape, its face, the purr of a tender voice....
<<Come on, whatever happens, stay in the bushes as usual...>>
The bush moved again.
With wide eyes and a strange salivating from how tense he was, he slowly advanced towards the plant. He knelt down, crouched down and stuck his hands into it to make room and see inside.
There was nothing.
.............
Jhon remained silent.
He kept looking all over the inside of the bush, even breaking it a little, as if he was desperately searching for someone. As if his heart compelled him to find that cat.
More memories came to his mind: sunsets with pizza smells, alleys with dogs chasing them, walks under the bridge to look for pieces to put together a necklace, and more scenarios involving every part of the city. Each and every one of them were good memories. Good memories that Jhon had forgotten or, rather, suppressed out of a need to forget sorrows.
But now that he was back home, back to his native home... and contrary to what Jhon had expected, he now felt empty.
Without his father, without friends, without recognizing anyone in town or who remembered him as a child; and also, without... her.
"Her," Jhon uttered, stopping his shredding of the bush and wiping his hands clean by shaking off the dust on his pants. He looked around for something that would make him remember something else.
He still couldn't remember her face, but he was beginning to recognize what he had been missing for years. That friend he had forgotten for so long.
That cat he considered his closest friend.
He began to remember her more clearly, every moment they once spent together, watching her grow up and then leave without saying goodbye.
<<Five years have passed. When we parted, she was just over a year old. Cats live longer than 6 or 7 years, even twice that. So...>>
Deep down, Jhon understood the reason for that feeling: desolation.
He cared for a black cat, with golden eyes. He gave her a necklace that had taken him a long time to make and that as a child he had told her it had been a school assignment when in truth he had been doing it for several nights until he got it right. And above all, they spent most of the day together.
And on the day she ran away from home, he just... abandoned her.
.............
Rising from the ground, and with a stiff breeze crashing against his body again, this time he displayed a more serious look, to which the only thing the wind could move from him this time was his clothes and hair, as he had now received a seeded determination from the past.
<<... She, is still alive.>>
In five years, a lot could have changed. She might not even remember him, and there was even the possibility that she had been adopted by someone else but, any thoughts of a tragic death were put out of her mind, for she had taught him well how to sneak around town for the entire year they had spent together.
Even if this one kept his distance from him when he found her, with the knowledge that she was okay, then he could heal that pain from the past.
<<Whatever it takes... before the day is out, I will find her.>>
That said, and with the soles of his shoe with dirt on them, he would walk to the front door of the house. He would take his suitcases and open it all at once, leaving his things inside. And immediately, as if he could navigate his past memories, he went in search of the one memory he knew would still be hidden in that house.
Entering his old room and crouching on the floor, he noticed that the wood had been refinished. If it were not for the strange impetus that ruled him at that moment, he would not have taken a hammer that was there to break one of the wooden planks and pull out the pieces as if he were breaking into someone's house.
He dug under the dirt that was left under the hole he had made and, with difficulty, pulled out a buried box full of dirt and dust. There was his most precious object, the one that years ago he would have wanted to at least carry with him.
"This...This is just as I left it."
Inside the small box, a picture of the little black cat with golden eyes awaited. To his luck, it still retained the good condition with which he had preserved it hidden for so many years, remembering how he had borrowed one of his father's friends' cameras to sneak the picture a long time ago.
He stood up and looked at the hole again, not flinching much as he told himself that he would fix it later. He just walked out of the room, then out of the house, and locked up.
It was early, possibly eleven in the morning. He still had plenty of time, so he began his search at once.
With the photo in hand, she began trying to locate with the map in her city brochure the places she often visited with her friend. There were many places to go, but if she had to start looking for one?
It would be the place of their first meeting. Othelo's Pizzeria.
She took a breath and started running, looking around in case she found her. He saw other cats, dogs and the occasional bird flying around, but no black cat at least.
<<She'll be six years old by now, she must be a full-grown cat,>> thought Jhon, as he stopped in front of an alley that caught his attention.
That was the alley from where they had escaped the pack of dogs.
He approached it with curiosity to try to find some clue, but after some rummaging, he found nothing. He thought about following his course, but for an idea that came to his mind.
On his side, several bricks of the wall were sticking out, remembering how he used to climb them to run on the roofs when he was a child. And just like that, he began to climb up, leaning on one after another, until he struggled his way up to the roof of the house. The rocky, rough texture of the bricks dirtied and scratched the palm of his hands a little, <<It's been a long time since I've felt this...>>.
Sweat broke out again from his hands and forehead, feeling how his body was not the same dexterous one he had years ago. And even now that he had gotten out of the habit of climbing into neighboring houses, he could feel the panic of heights much more. For someone who used to do it normally, it was most embarrassing.
He took a breath and sighed, searching with his eyes for the pizzeria. He put his hand over his eyes to block out the sunlight, and after searching and searching feeling more and more lost, he found it, but, to his surprise, it was no longer smoking like it always used to.
He took a breath to start jumping up and down on the roofs as before, but fear got the better of him. So he backed up and got down from the roof before anyone could see him. He didn't want to earn the reputation of someone crazy, he had to act calmly.
Regaining his composure, he started walking towards the pizzeria trying to think that someone might have seen him, and, after crossing several crowded streets, he ended up arriving. And just as he had feared: the pizzeria had been closed.
He put his hand on his forehead and took a breath, calming his anguish. He looked at the alley beside him, and another hallucination flashed before his eyes, as he saw himself with the black kitten in his hands. Again, the hallucination vanished in a strong wind.
He approached slyly, swallowing saliva as he became nervous about the people passing around him. He pretended to have missed something, and after a few minutes of snooping, he retreated, fearing they would think he was a thief and thus get him in trouble.
Deep down, he felt sorry that the place was closing, as he had never been able to eat inside. Just when life was smiling at him two sorrows would hit him on the same day?
But it was silly compared to what really mattered. Finding her friend.
And more steadily, she walked through the city. Every street she remembered passing, every alley, and snooping sometimes inside stores or restaurants.
Going from place to place, even asking various people around for her, she searched to exhaustion. He ate lunch, bought a few cans of tuna, and bought himself some sodas. And when night fell, around nine o'clock at night, he lay down in front of a store, exhausted.
He began to breathe with exhaustion, drinking one of the sodas to pull himself together. He had walked too far, and he knew that the next day his body would hurt, and a lot.
He ended up hitting the soda with the tuna can as he slammed it to the ground, exclaiming why he couldn't find a simple cat.
...
<<No, sorry. She's not a simple cat... I taught her to hide well too. She... she must have gone through a lot after we parted ways. Practically, I've abandoned her>>.
She took another swig of the soda, another one, and so on and so forth until she finished it. But all that drinking made him even more tired.
So, as embarrassing as it was... he would go to his last plan. The plan was that, if it didn't work, maybe tomorrow he would do the same until he found her, even though he had told himself that he would do it today.
Forgetting her was difficult for him, and deep inside, he didn't want to do it. He remembered well her meowing, her way of grooming herself and purring happily when they went out to play in the streets.
<<He didn't own her either, he just... took care of her>>.
Jhon got up with the bag of tuna and the empty soda bottles, and together with the photo began to walk through the streets back to his house.
He would use his last resort. The last thing that would occur to someone in his situation after feeling that the world was turning its back on him in the face of a remorse that, if he didn't finish it, would possibly make him stay a ghost until he did.
The streets around him began to grow quiet and the streetlights were beginning to come on. Compared to the young boy who had entered the town, he now looked like a droopy, staggering boy, staring into the void.
Jhon approached a nearby park, to his luck, several cats were gathered there.
He stood silently, and opened a can of tuna, walking towards them with the can. He set it down on the ground, and sat down, watching as little by little each cat approached his pace to eat some tuna. The peace these conveyed calmed him... bringing out his more sentimental side as he cried a little.
And without wasting any time, he took the picture out of the bag, and showed it to the cats. He put it down on the floor next to the can of tuna and, as if prostrating himself before a divinity, knelt down to the ground in front of them, trembling a little.
For Jhon, someone who spent a lot of time in his childhood with a cat with whom he seemed to have created a bond in which they could understand each other even though they did not understand each other by words, he was only left with the possibility of mere chance of luck in trying the same with the cats he encountered on his way home.
That is to say.
"Please... Help me find my friend..."
With a beacon of light illuminating the park land, where several street cats were gathered, and now a human surrendered to their will, an unnatural scene was on display.
Jhon looked up at the cats, who had stared at him for a moment.
"I don't know... if you understand me. But I... I've been gone away for a long time, and I never got to say goodbye properly to my friend. She doesn't have a name... or at least, I never gave her one, because I didn't think of her as mine, but as a friend. She was the cutest little kitty anyone could have ever seen, and by now she must be old enough to take care of herself..."
He heard purring all around him, and making his hair stand on end, dozens of cats began to surround him from different sides.
"But... still... I wish to find her. Because I want to apologize to her for abandoning her. I don't want to make excuses or see myself as the victim, I just want to know that she's okay and know that she'll live well. That... would be all. That's what I've been longing for the most...since I've been back in town."
Tears welled up in her eyes, falling on top of the photo.
Slowly, every cat gathered in the place came closer to look at the picture of the black kitten, and purrs began to sound. However, as expected, Jhon could never understand them.
He swallowed and wiped his eyes with his forearm. He pulled out the rest of the tuna and set them on the ground.
Ten tuna, enough for all the cats gathered, and he had spent much of the money he had saved for knick-knacks. For him, it was a better investment to do that than to spend the whole day looking to eat like crazy as he had wanted before. Because now, he only wanted one thing, and he had already placed his trust in his latest allies.
Carefully, he stood up and took the photo. It was the only copy of the photo he had and he couldn't leave it lying around or the wind would blow it away.
"... Thanks, anyway. Enjoy the tuna, my treat."
With that said, he marched home, carrying the grocery bag, and returned home. Without realizing it, he was staggering from side to side, just like a drunk, however it was just a great lack of energy that his body had consumed all day.
And as he stood in front of his house, he stared at the door for a moment, thoughtfully. But sleep won him over more, and before he fell asleep, he got the strength to enter with the key to his house that he had kept all the time in his pocket and, without realizing it, drop the picture outside the door of his house.
He closed the door behind him, and walked to his room, taking care of the hole he had made in the morning.
.............
Jhon... he didn't feel like doing anything anymore.
He stared at the ceiling... and, to his bad luck, remembered that just tomorrow he had his first day of school. He got up with an overexertion and went to take a shower, quickly packed his things, and went back to bed.
Memories came back to invade her mind for the last time that day... and just as if she could hear her friend's footsteps as they walked through the city, she noticed that the ceiling was being stepped on by several cats' paws, who were meowing at the same time. He decided to see it as a compassion of life, as, for the first time, he could sleep peacefully with one of the scenarios he had dreamed of as a child....
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP...
And simply... he ignored the loud footsteps that echoed louder than the others, and with a great sleep, he ended up asleep after a short while.
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