An Odd Epitaph
The thing about depression is that usually it’s portable, something heavy, like an extra book in my bag, that I lug around with me. But sometimes it morphs, liquefies and soaks me, and then sets into a thick, impenetrable coat of cement. The natural inclination of cement is immobility, which is fine if you can stand in a sculpture garden growing mossy over centuries, but I still have all the responsibilities of the busy, bustling world. The cats, who spend their days making detailed observations and the calculating the correlations between human behavior and the food in their bowls, know something is wrong when the ringing alarm gets no response. The deploy a level one response, Marley staring intensely at me from her perch on my chest. Then they escalate, Connor joining her on my chest, not just doubling the stare power but also adding bulk that skinny Marley can’t achieve on her own. Finally, as a last st...