Everyone Assumes I'm All Right Because I'm Always All Right | Richard Shury

In the mornings I wake and I shower and I put on my jeans to go out, even though I hate the feel of them and I would prefer my track pants. I wander to the shop and buy a paper and talk small talk with the lady until someone else comes in needing to buy something. I go to the coffee shop and say hello to the server, and I sit in the shop and drink coffee. Sometimes I’ll eat breakfast there if it feels like that kind of day.
The crockery in the coffee shop is grey and white, with no adornment and no pattern. The interior of the mugs is smooth like cream. The tabletops are faux-wood formica. If I get there early, which I always do, I’m able to select my favourite table in the corner, facing the door. There’s something about having solid wood at your back and the world spread out in front of you.
I sit at the table and do the crossword, and look up when people come through the door. The little bell rings when someone comes through the door, and sometimes it’s someone I’m on a hello or a nod or a small talk basis with, and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes they’ll see me and wander over and we’ll have a little conversation, and sometimes they won’t. Sometimes I finish the crossword all the way without looking up a single word, and mostly I won’t.
After my crossword is done I sit for a while and stare out the window and see who might go by. I see people and think about what their plans are, who they’re going to see or what they’re planning to do that day. Then I get up and walk home, through the little streets, up the same twelve steps to my door, which get a little harder every time, and I go inside and switch the radio on and don’t hear it. I sit by the window, and if it’s cold I pull a blanket around my knees against the draft, and if it’s wet I wipe the condensation from the window. And I think about whether I should sell the apartment and move to another place, one with a garden, the type of garden where cats will wander in and out and I can leave for them a little saucer of cream like you would have liked me to.
I never really liked cats. I disliked the way they’re only nice when they want affection, the way they operate emotion on their terms only, the way they act like they own your house and everything in it. But you liked cats.
And sometimes cats like me. In the old place they used to come up to me from time to time, and rub against my legs and make little mewing noises like they wanted to be petted. I never hurt them but I never petted them either. I shooed them away, not needing the affection they had to give.
You would get annoyed when I shooed them away. You would ask me to call to you so that you could come and pet them. But the cats never let themselves be loved by you. Every time I called to you they would walk away. Every time you reached down to pet them they would walk away. So I didn’t call you, because I could never bear the look on your face when they walked away.
That was in the old place. Now I am in the new place, the new place that is far from new. Now I sit here in the radio noise between grey walls and a misty window, and I think of the old place and how you used to love cats, but they never loved you back. I think of whether I should move to a new place with a garden, with a spot for a saucer of cream, where the cats might come, so I could reach down to pet them and see if they still want my love or whether they would walk away.

Richard A Shury is a SF nerd who dabbles in the literary arts. His short stories have appeared in DreamForge Magazine, Parsec Ink, Roi Faineant, and After Dinner Conversation, among others. He hopes these successes are the calm before a storm. Call him a part-time optimist.

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