You reap what you sow

  Its name was Cotton and he had been a member of the Northam family for at least ten years. He had been given to a young teenager named Martha, the oldest of the Northam marriage. They were a very wealthy family from the coastline region, controlling most of the fishing industry in the part of the country. They named the cat Cotton because of the color of its fur but also because the family also owned several cotton plantations on near the ocean, which they exported with ease.

 Martha had never really wanted a cat. She was not the kind of kid to like animals or anything that was alive. To be fair, she had problems at school that had resulted in her removal from the education system. She was then educated at home by private teachers who would come for at least five hours a day and try to educate her a bit. But the girl wasn’t interested, only being moved by the love of her father and his tendency to give her what she wanted whenever she wanted.

 Her mother Nancy had never agreed to that behavior but Mr. Northam, as head of the family, made all the big choices around there and she couldn’t really protest any of the decisions he made. If he wanted something done at home or not, if he wanted the children to go to school or not and even what kind of food would be served at home, it was him who decided it all, even if it didn’t really affected him. Because, you see, Mr. Northam was never around in the house, too busy with his business.

 Many, for a long while, had guessed he could be one of those men that has several mistresses all around and even other families but that was proven to be false when Nancy, on a very rare glimpse of attitude, had decided to follow her husband one day in order to se what he did with his time. It had been the most boring experience for him and had just sealed in her mind that nothing would ever change in that house because there was nothing unpredictable about the things happening all around.

 Cotton was officially Martha’s, but the cat spend much more time in the kitchen, sitting on an old wooden stool, while the cook did her chores of the day. She was a big woman, much bigger than any in the family, and she would often give the cat bits and pieces of everything she made. Everyone always seemed to be astonished at how fat he became over the years. No one knew about where he went every day and only the old cook knew and never told a soul. After all, Cotton was a bit like a companion, even a partner in crime if you will. She never felt alone when he was there.

 For Alysia, the cook, Cotton was more human than the people she made the food for. She liked the cat because he seemed to listen to what she said, even if it was ridiculous to converse with a cat. However, that all changed when Martha discovered the cat coming out of the kitchen one day, when she was about to leave the house after finally ending her high school years. Her father had agreed to pay a very expensive university far away in order for her to become a clothes designer.

 Even so, she complained to her father about the cat not being with her, as he should even if she didn’t want him around, and being with the cook instead. The children had never seen the cook’s face but they had been raised to believe that was far a reason, something to do with them being better than others although with a different wording, in order not to seem heartless and insensitive. But the truth could never be masked by pretty and false phrases that meant nothing.

 Mr. Northam’s response was pretty straightforward: Alysia was fired and replaced with another older woman, as big as she was. The cat stopped going to the kitchen because the new cook would always try to scare it off with a broom or something. So Cotton, once again, became an object for everyone in the house, as useless and uninteresting as a lamp or the rugs that were all over the place. No one cared about him afterward, being the gardener the one in charge of filling the cat’s bowel with food and water.

 Alysia leaved in a small shed was forced to leave it once she had been fired, as all of the housing in the area was exclusive for people that worked for the Northam family. She was evicted along with her few belongings and at age seventy-six she was forced to leave the region and go to a big city in order to try to find a new job, because she didn’t have enough money saved to pay for anything. Suffice to say that working for years had not made her a candidate for a pension or even health insurance.

 Cotton escaped one night and went looking for Alysia but he never found her. Not only because he arrived at the shed she used to leave with and no one was there, but because he was an already very old cat and couldn’t properly use his natural talents to find anyone. He was confused and tired, so he decided to go back to the only place where he could rest for the rest of his days. At least the small boys were now bigger and didn’t bother him and the rest of the family was too submerged in their own businesses in order to care for what a cat would do or not do.

 In the city, Alysia eventually found a job knitting for a store that made baby clothes. They required her skills to be almost out of this world and she was just too tired to do it as fast as they wanted her to be. So they also fired her from that place. She would never find a job ever again and, in a very sad turn, she died in line while trying to get into the office that was supposed to help her sue the Northams for everything that they owed her for all the years of service. It wasn’t peaceful.

 No one attended her funeral and she was cremated because there was no determined place to put her body. Some nice person dissipated her ashes in a park in the city, but that was it for her. She had raised a family, had endured after losing her husband and had made everything possible for her children to have better lives than hers. She failed and succeeded but all of that never mattered in her golden years, that time you are supposed to be at peace and with no worries.

 As for the Northam family, they didn’t have the best of lucks either. Because of very poor business decisions, a competing company was able to outgrow them and eventually they were forced to sell to them. Everything went, even the palatial house that had been their refuge for so many years. Every employee defected fast and many other were only fired with no compensation. Some of the old sheds were demolished and everything that had been a reality for so long had been turned into dust.

 As for Martha, she never returned from abroad. However, it was known by everyone that she had never paid a single semester in that fancy university, instead blowing the money in alcohol and drugs. A couple of years after her family’s bankruptcy, she was found dead because of an overdose. It was the final nail in the coffin for her family, a very big coffin with a very large amount of nails. Her parents divorced and her brothers never spoke to any of them again, separating forever.

 Cotton was a witness in all of this. However, the cat was very old and tired when it all happened. However, the gardener decided to keep him when things were being sold. After all that time, he had also developed a fondness for the furry creature.

 The cat died only a year after that, not being able to fully enjoyed proper love in a much better, although smaller, house. Some called the whole thing a curse but there are no such things. It’s more the phrase that grandmothers say: “You reap what you sow”.

One night

   His body was just perfection: tight in all the right places, soft skin, a beautiful natural smell and a taste anyone would love to enjoy. I had met him only a couple of hours before, in a bar. We had chatted for a long while after a group of his friends had left him alone and my only friend in the world had cancelled on our plans to spend a night together talking about our past and present and then wondering about our future. But her work was first in her life and I’ve learned to cope with that.

 It had happened before, so I ordered a tall drink with various liquors and just enjoyed the music and the view: that bar in particular was well known for being a very attractive spot for young gay men that wanted to be seen and older gay men that wanted to look at them and something more. Granted, I’m not old enough to be qualified as “older” and I’m certainly not what the younger guys are looking for, but we have decided on that place with my friend to try something different.

 One of my favorite pastimes is to watch people live around me, just walk by, wherever I happen to be: a park, a bar, an office or the supermarket. I just love imagining how what they are doing fits into their lives.  It doesn’t really matter whether they are men or women. Even looking at children is pretty funny and kind of different. That may sound creepy but I guess people are too accustomed not to care about others, so they decide what I do is wrong in some way, as if it was a problem to use your eyes and ears.

 I saw Brandon (he told me to call him “Bran”), an hour after I had started to drink and talk to the barman. That meant I had already drank at least three cocktails and two beers when our eyes locked and he decided to look at me while he chatted with his friends and even when he stood up and danced for a while on the dance floor. He’s younger than me but taller and fitter. He looks like the kind of guys that goes to bars in order to get a wealthy “daddy” or something like that.

 It was pretty surprising to see how, after most of his friends left, he walked to the sit next to mine and asked for a very sweet cocktail. I don’t really like those so I kind of smiled and he noticed it. We just started talking right there, flirting along the way. I looked every single millimeter of his face and I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I assumed he was an actor or a model or something of the sorts. It was obvious he took care of himself. The clothes he was wearing were expensive, I had seen similar ones on stores and hadn’t been able to buy them or properly wear them.

 As closing time grew closer, sexual tension arose. I was kind of drunk by then and I could see he was too. It was probably because leaner guys are least resistant to alcohol but that’s just my theory, which I have proven to be true more often than not. Besides, I was really used to drinking Friday nights, it was almost a recurrent thing for me. Which was different was the fact that I was drinking in a bar and not sitting in front of the TV watching some old movie in my underwear, with my cat Michael sleeping on top of my belly.

Bran, out of nowhere, put his hand right on top of my penis, over my pants. He started caressing it, looking at me straight into my eyes, as if he dared me to push him off or have sex right dare, in front of the crowd. I didn’t move or looked away. He eventually stopped to go to the bathroom. I paid while he was away and when he came back I told him we could go to my place and have a better night than in that bar. He didn’t required convincing at all. He just claimed his jacket and we walked.

 I find it kind of strange, but we spoke about many things on our way from the bar to my house. It was a fifteen minute walk but it felt much longer, as we wondered about the people in the bar, the “daddies” and the “twinks” we had seen there and all the curious characters coming and leaving during the night. It was as if we thought we weren’t part of that freak show but we just knew we were and it didn’t bother us. Bran seemed so grounded for such a young man. He made me feel old but wise.

 Once we got to my place, he entered first and started caressing Michael the minute he saw him. Bran loved my cat and Michael was the strange kind of cat that loved to be petted by men and not by women. Maybe that’s because I raised him and he just grew used to me bringing guys to the apartment or maybe his just a very particular cat. It might even be that I overthink too much about why my cat does things and how he does them. It doesn’t really matter. The point is his a guy magnet.

 I grabbed two cold beers from the fridge, gave one to Bran and asked him to join me on the couch. It wasn’t long before he was at it again, doing the same thing he did in the bar but panting a bit, just before we started kissing. He eventually sat on my lap, beers on the table, and we kissed and hugged and caressed each other for a good long time. We ignored Michael’s meows and the sound of an ambulance passing by. His hair on my fingers felt great, as his body gently pressed against mine. It was a difficult offer to resist, so I just didn’t.

 I kissed him on the cheek and asked him to go to the bedroom. Once we were in, I closed the door in order for Michael to stay away. I didn’t like my pet to witness my sexual feats, no matter how wonderful they were. And Bran was, by far, the most beautiful man that I had ever brought home. He was taller but also softer; he was gorgeous but also interesting. After I closed the door, I grabbed him by the waist and gently unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a small tattoo on his right shoulder blade.

 It was a video game character, looking at me, inviting me to play with him. That detail made me smile and stop for a second. He turned around, confused and I explained my pause. He smiled back and we resumed our kissing. I undressed him and he undressed me and in minutes we were completely naked, enjoying each other’s bodies on top of my blankets. Again, his smell was subtle but perfect. The taste of his lips was special, as if he had never kissed before. It was almost magical.

 He went down first and I found myself being contradicted: his lips sad one thing but other parts of his body told a much different story.  He made me smile, moan and sighed uncontrollably. He came back up and we kissed and then it was my turn. As expected, every single part of Bran’s body was made of dreams or stars because he was just incredible. Even now, days after it happened, I find myself having a hard time wrapping my head around such a special man.

 I made love to him for a long while and he seemed to enjoy every single second of it. I wanted more kisses and he seemed to want exactly that. Our understanding on that level was just amazing, so much so that we seemed to anticipate the other’s movements by seconds, making the evening a perfect fragment of time for both of us. When we both finished, we cleaned up a bit and I invited him to sleep as we were, hugging if possible. He smiled and fell asleep in seconds on my chest.

 When I woke up, he was still sleeping. The morning light made him look even more perfect. I knew something strange was to blame for such an encounter by I decided not to doubt it and just let it end on a high note. And it did, hours after, having breakfast together, talking a bit more.

 We didn’t exchange numbers or emails, not even social media nicknames. He knows where I live and I know the bar he likes. We might run into each other again but it might not be as special as that night was. And that’s fine. We made each other happy for a moment and that’s more than enough.

The golden carp

   Fishing had always been the way to live for Lin and his friends. Fro ma very young age, their parents had taught them the best parts on the river and the ocean where they could easily catch a vast array of fish and other living being from the ocean’s floor. They even had a friend named Chen, who lived his life by diving on the ocean and fishing things that many net couldn’t pull away from the sea. When he was lucky enough to find pearls, he would sell them and stop working for a month or so.

 However, the rest of them could never take a day off or anything like that. They had to work every single day for many hours, from dusk till dawn, no matter how tired and bored they sometimes got. The youngest one of them was Sun, who had only started the year before. He had being made to leave school but, after a very vivid argument, his mother had managed to convince the father to let him stay in school. So Sun had to wake up really early to fish for a while with his father and then he would go back at it in the afternoon.

 It was a hard life for such a young person but it wasn’t a unique thing for anyone on that region. They all had to do things that they didn’t really want for themselves. Most young people, for example, had the ambition to travel to big city, any of them, and being able to live the lives they sometimes saw on advertisements or on the television set, when people had one. It was a matter of doing what was needed to be able to reach that moment when they could choose their own path.

 When in his family’s boat, Sun would often try to do his homework but the fishing rods that he put on the edge would always move in the precise moment he was concentrating, on the verge of getting to a point where he would advance in his studies. He was doing poorly on some of his assignments and he really needed to get better soon if he wanted to get ahead in life. He knew the only way to get out of his town would be to learn more than others, to be smarter than any of the people he knew.

 Suddenly, one of the rods moved violently and then it was pulled into the water. It didn’t float for a moment or anything; it just disappeared in the blink of an eye. Sun leaned over the boat and tried to fish for the rod but the only thing he got out of it was a powerful bit from a huge carp that suddenly came out of the water. Normally, a fish bite wouldn’t really hurt but this one left a red mark on Sun’s hand. However, the weirdest thing was to see the carp looking back at him, almost as if it was staring. Then, out of nowhere, the carp spoke with a deep voice.

 He moved his mouth very differently than a human would but it was obvious that it was the one who was speaking. There were no other boats in the vicinity and Sun was too stunned to produce any words. The fish wanted to know where he was, as he had been following a current for some days and now it seemed he had found himself on the opposite side of the current. He apologized to Sun for biting him, but he explained he had been very scared when looking up and watching a hand reach for something.

 A little bit calmer, Sun rubbed his eyes and moved his hair around: he was obviously surprised but also very skeptical that it was actually happening. It seemed much more probable that he had fallen asleep in the boat and the sun on his head had created some kind of illusions or nightmares. It was very uncomfortable for that to happen, because of the response his parents would have if they looked at him sleeping on the boat. Yet again, he wasn’t very close to the beach.

 So Sun decided to play with the moment and just decided to ask the carp more questions, in order to really understand what was happening. Sun asked the fish where he wanted to go. The animal named a bay that he had never heard about. It had to be somewhere very far, so he just told the carp the name of the river that was nearby and the one of the bay they were talking on. The carp then did something even more unexpected than asking: it yelled, very loud, a very harsh curse word.

 The carp told Sun he really needed to go where he wanted because his whole family was reuniting for a very special event. He explained that he was part of a very special kind of carps that turned golden after a certain amount of time. When that happened, they were allowed to join a special school of fishes that could travel the ocean at fast speeds and could also grant wishes to anyone, human or animal, that came across them. It was a special thing that only they could do.

 Sun then interjected. He was very interested by that story because his mother had told him about how his maternal grandmother had come across a golden carp when she was young. Apparently, the fish had healed her from a very powerful disease that was creeping its way through her young body. The wish had made her well, and even better, it had made her a very vivacious woman until her last day. He remembered her from his toddler years and asked the carp if it was possible to know which carp had granted that wish, in order to give his thanks.

 The carp moved his head from side to side. He explained that golden carps never returned to the same place twice, so it was rather difficult to know which carp had granted which wish. Then, it started swimming back and forth. It was obvious he was really upset by the fact he was going to miss the best and most unique event in his life. Sun realized that, illusion or not, he should help the fish just because he had been the cause of him existing. No grandmother would have meant no Sun.

 He proposed the fish to jump on the boat in order to help him get somewhere, anywhere he wanted. Maybe there were other carps nearby that could help him get to the place he wanted to go. The carp was a bit skeptical of the plan but it really wanted to get to the event so he asked Sun to take him to a place where he could talk to many other fish. Maybe in such a hub he would be able to get some information on how to get where he needed to be. Time was of the essence.

 So Sun pulled the rods into the boat, a net filled with only water and then turned on the engine. The carp told him it would follow from underwater. Sun tried to remember the place where his father would fish every single day but then he realized the place would be crowded and all other fishermen would see the talking carp. Sun still believed he was asleep or maybe delusional, but it wasn’t enough to make him do such a stupid thing. They would capture the carp and kill it or maybe sell it because of its abilities.

 He stopped the boat at least three times; changing courses frequently because he remembered people would be there. Maybe even his friends who would taunt him. When the carp swam to the front and asked why he appeared to be so indecisive, Sun realized he wasn’t dreaming at all. He started taking it more seriously, less like a weird dream and more like something that was really important to do. He turned to the carp and was about to say he was sorry about not being able to help but then he remembered Chen.

 He was a good friend and had told him once where he fished for oysters and other animals. Sun turned on the engine again and in a matter of only minutes they were in the spot used by Chen to have his leisurely life. Then, Sun jumped out of the boat and indicated the carp to follow him.

 The carp followed and they found a colony of mollusks on the ocean floor. The carp started communicating with them and Sun went back to his boat. The carp surfaced later on, thanking him for his help. When the carp left, smaller fish appeared out of nowhere and jumped into the boat. Sun’s family was very surprised by his success.

Those voices

   I was awake, of that I’m sure. My eyes were open, I was kind of seating, kind of lying on my back while I had my laptop over my lap. I had turned it on only a few minutes before. So, I’m certain I was awake, there was no other way. As I wrote on the keyboard, I realized I could hear voices. Often, it would be someone talking by the window, on the outside of the building. It happened all the time and it always felt as if those people were inside my room, just chatting about something.

 But this time, the voices didn’t seem to come from outside. Actually, I was very certain that wasn’t the case because the voices coming from below the window always had the same tone, whatever the voice. This time, it felt as if he voices were coming from inside the building. I could hear them increasing their volume, as if they were approaching me but that wasn’t possible. The nearest someone not from my family, being inside the building, had to be several meters away.

 Besides, there were two closed doors and a couple of walls to go through, so the voices shouldn’t have been come so clear. It was as if they were clearing their throats and now the voices were just perfect, clean and powerful. What was worst, the voices weren’t speaking anything in particular, or at least it didn’t seem that way. What was really awful was the fact that they started singing, like a choir. They were all male voices and they were very potent, professional in a way.

 They sang a song with no real words, only loud sounds perfectly executed with their voices. They did it perfectly but that seemed to me even creepier, because if they had made a mistake, I would have known they were just people rehearsing some awful song or something. But no, that didn’t happen. Instead, the voices kept increasing their volume. By the end of their song, I was surprised none of my family members came to my room to ask what was going on.

 Later, much later in the day, I would learn that no one else had heard anything like I had heard. I felt a little bit crazy, because I didn’t think the voices had any supernatural backgrounds. I mean, they were just voices. Yes, they were not behaving very normally, but there was nothing that spectacular or unusual about them, except maybe the unique weirdness of the song. They had to be coming from actual people but I found it hard to believe that voices could be heard so clearly inside my room, when they were apparently coming from inside the building.

 There was the possibility I was mistaken. Maybe the voices did come from outside and I just thought that wasn’t the case. It always happens that the mind chooses a certain way and it seems impossible that the opposite one could be true but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. Maybe some group of men was rehearsing something near my home and the voices were carried in some way that I don’t know how to understand. Maybe it was one of those natural things that are complicated to explain.

 I’m not the kind of person that believes in voices from the grave or something like that. I respect the dead and everything around them, so much so that I prefer not to go to graveyards and funeral homes unless I absolutely have to. It’s not because of fear but because all those rites are normally linked to a religion and I find myself feeling like a hypocrite in the middle of all that. Besides, the people crying and that entire aura that surrounds dead people, it’s really not for me.

 In any case, none of that explains the voices I heard. What was worse, I later remembered that I had been woken up by a sound earlier that day. Maybe three hours before I actually woke up. The sound must have been louder than a whisper or I wouldn’t have heard it. But I did. And then I heard it again. It was a voice. I don’t remember what it said but it was only one person, not a group like it would happen later. I wish I remembered what he said… I fell asleep a few seconds after.

 So I heard voices twice on the same day. The most likely reason for all of this, besides the voices been of a natural source, is that I may be going crazy. This may sound funny or just stupid to many people, but I actually believe I might be going insane. It’s clearly not normal to hear things that aren’t there. And I don’t believe in the paranormal. Besides, ghost speaking in broad daylight with no other backup “occurrences”? Doesn’t seem to be in line with all those things people claim about ghosts.

 Maybe I am going crazy. I have reasons to and it’s certainly not uncommon for a crazy person to hear voices. They all come from their heads, being a certain version of themselves. They are their own inner demons, created by their illness to torture them. Maybe that’s what I have, maybe that explains everything. I don’t want to keep this story going longer because there’s nothing much to say except that I’m very scared for my mental health. Headaches are almost a daily thing and my life is not really going anywhere. Could anyone blame me if I went insane?

 Damn. Here they are again.