His Lack Of Serotonin

“People are -”
“Stars,” I finished. John looked at me like I was crazy, like he always does.
“What? No, people are flesh and blood.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Stars.” I left it at that, satisfied that stars and people have things in common, like gas. I rolled on to my side, away from him, and he rolled to his side to scoop me up. I like when he does this; I belong when he holds me this way. I took inventory of his closet, like I always do when I’m on my side. There are button up shirts in conservative colors, and dress pants to match. There are at least ten pairs of nice shoes on shoe racks - shoes with leather soles, because good shoes are important, he says. There is a second set of sheets balled up and thrown on the top shelf. There is a steamer, as wrinkled clothes are unacceptable.
He proceeded to tell me why people are certainly not stars, why they are far more interesting than stars, why he wouldn’t want to be a star because they burn out and turn into black holes.
“Well, I’m a star,” I sighed.
“Is that so?” he asked, kissing my hair. I like when he does this; I feel like he cares about me with those kisses.
“Yes. People burn out all the time.” I thought about my job in retail and how all of my friends who work with me hate their jobs and tell me every single day that they plan on quitting, yet every single day I walk in and there they are. Luckily I don’t hate my job. “But I’m a baby star, so I have a long way to go,” I added.
“But when stars become black holes they suck everything in,” he stated.
“So? That would be cool, to have everything inside of you…” I trailed off because I don’t even know why I said that people are stars in the first place. But I said it and I at least partly believe it, and he needs more statements like that in his life. And I might be the only one to seriously say things like that to him.
I rolled back towards him and looked up at him. He smiled at me and shook his head, but then kissed my forehead. Those are good kisses, the kind that make me feel safe.
“You’re silly,” he said. I’d been waiting for that line, as it’s his favorite thing to say to me. I can’t count how many times he says this to me within an hour or two. I rarely even argue with him about it anymore. I looked out his window at the poplar trees that soar past his window. The leaves were shaking in the breeze, turning yellow to remind us that they would be falling soon and that we should take advantage of the weather.
“I’m glad your blinds are still open,” I said. “Why did you listen to me, someone so silly, when I told you that you should keep them open all the time?”
“It seemed like good advice. It made sense. Silly people can have sensible advice, too.” I shrugged, just happy that there was light in his room. There’s never enough light in his room. I can hardly tell that the pale yellow walls are pale yellow, they just look bleakly white. In fact I didn’t really know the walls were yellow until a few days ago, and I’ve woken up in that room often enough for four months.
“You have a whole day…” I mused, unable to comprehend what a day with no obligations feels like anymore. “What are you going to do with it?” I sat up and began to get dressed, since I had to be at work within a couple of hours.
“I don’t know,” he said, propping his head up on his arm and pulling the covers close to him. I put on my glasses and looked at him.
“Well don’t spend it in here.” I told him to have fun, as that is my trademark farewell. I constantly tell everyone to have fun, whether they’re going to eat dinner, take an exam, go to work, host a birthday party, read a book…regardless, have fun.
I left his room and closed his door. I needed to get home to see Mike. Mike would not be happy that I spent the night away from home and that I was only coming back to shower and then leave again for work. Poor Mike.

* * *

The cat sits motionless on the radiator. A candle is burning in front of her - roasted chestnuts. It doesn’t smell like roasted chestnuts, but it smells nice and it was on sale. I just re-lit the candle a few minutes ago, because she put it out with her bare paw the first time.
She’s over a year old now, but still gets to experience new things on a regular basis. In August, for example, she learned what fleas are and we’ve been dealing with them ever since. She now knows of fire; she knows it is hot, but she is too intrigued to leave it at that. So she sits and stares, waiting for a second when I’m not looking at her, to touch it. She knows what No means too though, and when she sits up to touch the flame I say No and she crouches again, waiting for her moment.
Finally she gets bored and looks at me. Her eyes look heavy - she’s ready for bed, but I’m not. Sleep is usually a last priority, unless I’m on someone else’s couch, in which case it is often the first. She jumps to the floor and crosses the supremely girly rug - a handful of brightly colored stripes under equally bright flowers - to a chair next to my bed. She hops up and slowly crawls onto my stomach, kneading it’s softness. She looks at me again, this time purring. She moves her kneading up to my chest and touches my nose with hers, eyes half closed, please let’s go to sleep. When she realizes that I’m still miles from sleep, she jumps to the floor. The fire catches her eye again, and she jumps back up on the radiator. She licks her paw, remembering what happened last time.
“Mike, no,” I remind her. She crouches to watch the flame again.
Yes, her name is Mike. When I first got Mike, I realized after a few days that “Look how cute you are!” and “Kitty cat!” simply would not work as names, so my seven year old sister said, “How ‘bout Mike?”
“Mike? How’d you come up with Mike?” I asked. We all knew the cat was a girl.
“Well, there’s a boy in my class named Michael, so, I just came up with Mike.” She said it as a matter of fact, as if she had created the name Mike. Mike stuck, and now I get to introduce people to my cat by saying, “And this is Mike. She’s a girl.”
Mike is a gray tabby cat, and she prefers the red rings from milk gallon jugs and the noisy plastic seals from various bottled products to actual cat toys. She also prefers that I don’t bring my boyfriend over to spend the night. The twin bed is only large enough for two, me and my cat or me and John, and Mike always loses. She extracts her revenge, though, by walking up and down John when he spends the night. When John doesn’t spend the night, Mike sleeps motionlessly by my side or at my feet all night. But when he is here, Mike makes sure she prances up and down his body and never once makes a movement that might wake me. John says that Mike is a silly cat because she has a silly owner. I think Mike is just a happy cat.

I’m not the only silly one. John routinely kisses my boo-boos. I told him this was silly, and he claimed that lots of people do that, so it isn’t silly. That was flawed logic, of course, but I jumped on it anyway. “Lots of people dance in the rain too, and you think that’s silly.” He said it wasn’t bad to be silly. I never claimed he’d said otherwise. He let me win too easily, and agreed that he was silly. But I know he still doesn’t think so.
“How are you?” I asked him when we woke up that morning.
“Okay,” he said, as usual.
“One day you’ll tell me you’re good,” I sighed.

Mike thinks that people are stars too. I know, because she doesn’t say anything to the contrary. Yes, that is Crazy Cat Lady talk. John thinks it’s silly that I find the idea of being a Crazy Cat Lady endearing. I bet Mike thinks it’s not a bad idea.