I had never imagined that the coming of day would become my greatest wish, my greatest joy. Most people don't celebrate daylight or the fading of night; they see the cycle of day and night as something ordinary, unworthy of happiness or sorrow. But for me, night was a curse, and day was a blessing.
That is why I grew to love the color white for it reminded me of the light that room in my nightmare had always lacked, the darkness that had long tormented my sleep. In contrast, I began to hate everything associated with black. My black-covered journals, my clothes, my sunglasses, my black leather shoes, I burned them all, just to keep from summoning the image of that pitch-black room from the nightmare. I even gave away my black-furred cat, Micho, to an animal protection shelter. I wanted to forget the color black entirely, to erase it from my memory, to avoid anything touched by it.
My cat, Micho, looked at me with reproachful eyes as she watched from behind the bars of her plastic carrier while I handed her over to the shelter attendant. In her gaze, I read a thousand questions, all circling around one: why had I abandoned her? I wished I could scream at the top of my lungs, tell her that everything black had begun to terrify me, even my own hair when I looked in the mirror. I wanted to tell her that I was letting her go out of necessity, not choice. I wished, more than anything, that she could speak, that she could understand me without me having to say a word.
In her eyes, I read farewell. I returned it with a wave of my hand, and with tears as hot as flowing lava, streaming down my cheeks and falling onto the marble floor of the building. It was a silent, unplanned bitter farewell.
Micho had once been a stray, surviving on scraps from garbage bins lining the road to the elementary school. I was eight years old then, and it was raining. On my way home from school, sheltering beneath my umbrella, I saw a filthy black cat so thin you could almost count her ribs. She was digging through a trash bin, her whole body buried inside it, only her tail visible, searching desperately for something to eat.
After some struggle, she managed to find a chicken thigh bone. As she dragged it out, it seemed heavier than she was. Within moments, several other cats surrounded her, baring their fangs. They stole her food and ran off, leaving her behind, hungry, lost, and defeated.
I snapped my fingers to call her. She came toward me without the slightest fear. Usually, cats would run away when I called them. But she didn't.She approached me slowly, her steps heavy. I didn't know whether she saw hope and safety in me, or if she had simply thought, Let me follow him and let whatever happens, happen, I have nothing left to lose.
I bent down, lifting her with my right hand while holding the umbrella with my left. I cradled her in my arm the way a mother holds her child. She yawned softly and flicked her tail, perhaps she felt a hint of warmth. Then I walked home, mimicking the sounds of cats, imagining I was speaking her language, carrying on a conversation only I could understand. The cat responded with nothing but quiet yawns and the slow closing of her eyes from time to time, silent, but no longer alone.