It's a Short Life
Yellowed walls. An old beige telephone with a circular number dial. Frayed floral accents on the couches and windows. The reek of old cigarette smoke, the faint smell of ammonia and death. Kennedy hated visits to Grandma's house and, though he felt like a heartless bastard admitting it, the sentiment was tripled now that the old rat was on her deathbed.
He sat immobile in a splintering wooden kitchen chair, staring at a faded painting of the Last Supper, his subtle craving for a cigarette sulking under a fog of apathy. Somewhere a clock was counting the seconds until his grandmother would let up a wail of pain, or worse, confusion, because the poor old thing could hardly remember what was going on much of the time nowadays. Tick. Tock. At last, it came.
"Joseph! Where are you, you lazy old bastard? Haven't you gotten paid yet? We've got bills and your goddamn children to feed and you... can't... fat son of a..." a hacking coughing fit cut her tirade short. Kennedy pushed himself to his feet and shuffled down the hall towards the ranting old rat to reassure her. He approached her bedside and began to go through the motions of comforting her, reminding her that Grandfather was dead and had been for some time, telling her to stop yelling because she needed to keep up her strength, and all of the other bullshit his family had instructed him to say and do before they left him on babysitting duty so they could go out for lunch and a few drinks.
He had just gotten to the phase where his grandmother stared at him in wide-eyed, steadily wheezing confusion, on the line between disbelief and embarrassment, when he heard the doorbell ring from the living room.
"Hold on, Grandma," he said, ignoring her response of "Who the hell are you, anyway?" as he headed towards the front door. He saw a vaguely feminine blur through the door's small stained-glass panel and was surprised to open it and see one of his old high-school friends, a little white mouse named Chelsea.
He stood stunned for a moment as he absorbed how much she'd changed; she'd once been a meek little bookworm-sort, thin as a rail and often hunching, ears and nose prone to twitch at the odd noise or disturbance. The mouse who stood at his grandmother's door stood tall, a barely sufficient black halter top with a (quite impressive) scooping decolletage crowning a subtle roll of softly-furred fat around her waist, a pair of worn faded jeans indicating a sharp eye for the latest fad Hollywood had coughed out. Her white ears were studded all the way around, save a hanging silver earring at the base of each. He noticed that she'd had her brown spots bleached out, and her dirty blonde hair straightened. Chelsea was silent with him as he gawked at her, appearing amused and pleased by his shock. Finally he spoke.
"Chelsea?" was all he was able to get out at first.
"Yep, it's me," was her smug reply, "I'm surprised you recognized me."
Kennedy was suddenly aware that he'd spent most of the first half-minute of their reunion staring at her rack. He was glad that his brown fur would conceal his blush of embarrassment. "Chelsea! God, it's been, uh..."
"Four years," she finished for him, "At least." She smiled bemusedly. "I see you're still as scrawny as ever, of course. And you've got the same straggly black hair. One would think youd've learned to brush it by now."
"Ha-ha." Kennedy moved to hug her in greeting, but felt suddenly awkward, and was beginning to move to shake her hand instead when she seized him into a tight hug saying, "Kennedy, come on, don't be such a pussy." And she had a new vocabulary, too.
"Wow, Chelsea, you look so... uh... different."
"They're fake," she replied with an amused smile, "And no, I'm not the same glasses-wearing little mousie who used to tote Mom's PB&J to school every morning. I'm a new mouse. Confident. Experienced."
"Blunt," added Kennedy. "Well, are you going to come in, or what?" He shut the door behind her as she entered and walked towards the couch with her. "So, why are you here, anyway? At my grandmother's house, of all places." He fell back into the couch, leaning into the armrest.
Chelsea's smirk faded and her composure sobered. "I heard she was... ill. I've come to pay her my last respects."
Kennedy snorted. "Yeah, well lemme warn ya, it'll be a bit one-sided. She doesn't even remember me anymore. I doubt she'd remember the twiggy mouse who used to come over and play Super Nintendo with her grandson."
"What the fuck ever, Kennedy. I still want to tell her goodbye." She set her jaw stiffly, but her eyes betrayed her with a haze of glossy tears. Feeling like a jerk, Kennedy shuffled back to his feet.
"Uh, yeah, well uh... her room's this way, okay? I warn you though, she's in really bad shape. Too fucking stubborn to stay in a hospital room, so they compromised by setting up her equipment in her bedroom with her. Didn't appear to think they'd be missing it for too long." He tried to smile, but Chelsea's seriousness killed the sentiment. He cleared his throat awkwardly, jerked his head towards the hall, and led the way.
His grandmother had stopped her yelling, which was cause for some relief, but Kennedy's heart began to race as he neared the doorway and realized that he could not hear her ever-present wheezing. His tail stiffened involuntarily and his breath caught in his throat; as he approached her bedside he could feel his heart rising and fluttering strangely.
As he had suspected, the old rat had finally died. One of her cataract-tinted eyes was opened more widely than the other, and her gum disease-infected mouth hung slightly parted, giving her an almost comical appearance of surprise. Her IV stood uselessly at her side.
Chelsea was very quiet, the fingertips of her left paw over her lips as Kennedy checked the old rat's pulse. He couldn't find one. His expression said it all as he looked back to his friend, and she let out a heavy sigh. "Guess I was too late," was her dejected response. "Let's go smoke." She grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the dead rat's nightstand and left the room in a hurry. Kennedy hesitated only for a moment, gently shutting his grandmother's eyelids with a paw and tilting her head so that her mouth no longer hung open. She still felt faintly warm. "I'll call the family later, Gramma. Tell them what happened. For now, though... I need a fucking cigarette."
He felt for the pack in his pocket as he turned and headed back to the living room, tapping a cigarette into his hand as he scanned for Chelsea. The front door was open and she was sitting on the front porch, leaning heavily into the doorframe, breathing a long plume of white smoke. He knew she remembered that there was no manner of smoking policy at that house, so he figured she'd really wanted to get outside. Taking a look behind him at the hallway, he remembered the sad, ungraceful corpse and realized he felt the same way. Soon he was shutting the door behind him and lighting up, taking a few much-needed drags before sinking down the door and beside Chelsea. They shared a moment of silence.
"I didn't know you smoked," mumbled Kennedy past his cigarette, head back against the door and eyes shut.
"I don't," he heard Chelsea reply. "I started smoking for awhile, but since then I've quit. Times like this, though, a cigarette's just the thing."
"Amen to that," said Kennedy with a smile. He paused for a beat. "You took Gramma's cigarettes."
"She didn't need 'em. Anyway, they're my favorite brand. Convenient."
"I'm not blaming you," replied Kennedy, and scooted back, straightening against the door, and opened his eyes, staring at his blue jeans. He curled his naked pink tail into his lap and tried to rub a black smudge off of it with a paw, lost in his own thoughts.
"Fucking movies got it all wrong," he heard Chelsea say, her voice choked with emotion. He turned his head to look at her, and saw that there were tears in her eyes. "There's no drama, no grace, no goddamn meaning to death. It's one minute, you're up and breathing, going to work and trying to remember who fed the cat, and the next you're... you're... you're just a fucking sack of meat."
Kennedy shifted a bit, feeling awkward and at a loss for words. He made to put his arm around Chelsea, decided against, then sighed and went on and did it. She seemed to cave in at his touch, dropping her cigarette and crowding closer to him, crying into his chest with loud, shaking, uncontrollable sobs. He threw his own cigarette onto the porch, crushed the ember with a toe, and wrapped his other arm around his friend. Having no words for her, he let her vent in silence.
After a time, Chelsea drew in a few long, shaking breaths, and sat up, leaning against the door next to Kennedy. She made no move to pull away from the arm that remained around her. "Your grandma was always so nice to me when I was little... one of the only people who ever was. Little rough around the edges, but always looking out for me, you know? Making sure I was doing good in school, eating enough, telling me never to take no shit from nobody. All I wanted was, you know, to thank her. Say goodbye. Make her comfortable, maybe, for the time she had left. But I guess she couldn't wait to get out of this shithole."
Kennedy rallied at her negativity. "Aw, come on, Chelsea. Don't tell me you're one of those 'life's a bitch, then you die' kinda mice. There's good in it too."
"Fuck yeah I am. Name one good thing, one thing that makes all this bullshit worthwhile." Chelsea's glare challenged him to say what she was sure he'd say.
"Well, there's uh... love," said Kennedy lamely.
"Hah! Love!" Sure enough, that's what she'd been expecting. "What's love? Someone to cook you dinner at night? A legal certificate? Sex? I've had my relationships, Kennedy, and this is how it is: you find a guy, he seems alright, not too weird, you have a couple dinners, have sex, maybe move in for a little while. Then the sex gets boring or turns out he's nothing like you thought you wanted, or the other way around, and sure enough there you go again, single, ready to make the same fucking mistake just one more time. Whatever love is, it's either real fucking temporary or impossible to find. If there is such a thing as love, even."
Kennedy frowned and slumped deeper into the door. She just would not cheer up. "I don't know, Chelsea. Seems to me like you just don't want to be happy. What you want, it's to bitch about how shit's gone wrong and won't ever be right. I mean..." he began to mumble his words, "I've never been in love either, but I don't stop trying."
Chelsea looked at him in surprise. "A little mushy for a guy, aren't you?"
"Shut up, Chelsea," he grumbled.
"No, no... I think it's sweet. I never heard a guy talk like that. It's... refreshing."
Kennedy stared at his bare toes, embarrassed. "Well, at least it got you to shut up about how shitty life is."
Chelsea laughed and, unexpectedly, kissed Kennedy's ear. A rat's ears being very sensitive, Kennedy started a bit, and Chelsea laughed again. "Thanks, Kennedy. Who would of pegged you, of all people, as an optimist!"
Kennedy smiled a small, awkward smile, pleased. "You know. Life's too short to spend the whole time bitching."
"Yeah," said Chelsea. "Yeah, it is." She grinned, mischief taking her over, and leaned close to him. Kissed his ear a second time. Kennedy looked up, eyes refocusing for how close she now was, feeling her warm breath tickle his fur. He could not help but to feel a tingle of excitement, a small, not entirely unwelcome, but embarrassing sexual stirring.
"You a virgin, Kennedy?" Chelsea was nothing if not to-the-point.
"Wha-? No! No, of course not." He felt his face get hot.
"No need to get defensive about it," she laughed, "I just wanted to make sure. Come on." Her eyes and her smile said mischief, and she got up, offering her hand to him.
He knew what she was really offering, but feigned confusion, giving her his hand, and pulled himself to his feet. "Why?"
"Shut up, Kennedy. You know why." She opened the front door and held it for him, keeping hold of his hand and pulling him inside. "Your gramma still keep that spare bedroom?" She went directly to the room in question, not waiting for Kennedy's response. The empty room, featuring no more than a bed, a dresser, and a very old television, was her confirmation. She made a line for the bed, barely giving Kennedy a moment to conscientiously close the bedroom door--what would his grandmother think now, he wondered unbidden--and pushed him onto the bed, taking no shame in straddling him outright and pressing her lips and tongue onto his startled mouth. For awhile, he gave in and shared her passion, gripping her hips and kissing her back, but then he paused and pushed her gently away. They looked at one another for a moment, when Kennedy asked softly, "What are you doing?"
Chelsea smiled. "I'm looking for love, of course."
Kennedy laughed. "Aren't you looking in the wrong place?"
"Am I?" Chelsea raised her eyebrows, and Kennedy found that he had no reply to that. After all, he'd never found love--who was he to tell her where to find it?
"Huh. I guess you could be right." He smiled and grabbed her waist, pushing her onto her back and pinning her with his body. "Well come on then." He grinned. "Let's find love."