The Lobby
Flash Fiction
by Angela Townsend
When my eyes close for the last time and then open for the first time, I will look out over the Lobby. No eye has glimpsed, nor ear has heard, what happens in the Lobby and come back to tell the rest of us. But I think I have seen a sketch.
As architectural renderings go, it is rough. No graph paper was involved, and someone carried off the slide rule in their mouth. There are secret passageways doodled in glitter gel. The whole diagram is scratch-and-sniff. I would not necessarily advise scratching or sniffing.
This proto-Lobby is the aula of a cat sanctuary. That is more preposterous than it sounds. You are wise to deposit your expectations in the narthex, like an umbrella you will not need again.
You will meet a cat as white and wide as Ahab’s whale. Frankie will declare eminent domain over your lap. Frankie lives in the airlock before the Lobby, because he will not agree to permit other cats to live. Frankie interprets this to mean that he has won.
Loss is invalid in the Lobby. If you try to contort your lips into the word “loser,” only a giggle will come out. If you persist in trying, you will emit the songs of Meat Loaf and Weird Al, and all the cats will laugh, but never at you.
Laughing is the currency of the Lobby, because everyone is wise enough to remain ridiculous. You will be forgiven if you think you see Christ walking on water out the corner of your eye. It is not water, it is linoleum, and it is not the Messiah, it is a tabby cat the size of a loaf of Wonder. Allan crosses the expanse without touching the ground, because Allan is missing part of his brain.
Allan is missing part of his brain because his soul occupies more than its normal share of space. The cat is four pounds of chaplaincy. He identifies the bereaved and proactively places his head against their chests. Allan’s mother was vaccinated against distemper while Allan was in utero. Allan was vaccinated against hesitation because his cerebellum stayed modest. He has no motor control and no obligation to gravity.
Allan would like to marry Shyla, but so would two-thirds of saints and angels. Shyla is a silver dollar. She came to the Lobby because she suffered injuries “incompatible with life.” The ceiling of the Lobby is reinforced with stubbornness. Shyla stared into people’s eyes, the way you stare when you know there is something good in the cupboard, all the way at the back. Shyla pumped her paws in the air as though she was kneading tomorrow morning’s bread. Shyla lived. Now her tail hangs limp, but she does not remember why. When she gallops, it sails like a pennant.
There is a good deal of running in the Lobby. Jellibean cannot walk, but she has the upper body strength of several Schwarzeneggers and will plow infinity signs around your ankles. She cannot empty her own bladder, or the day of its jokes. A behaviourist might say Jellibean bites because she is “overstimulated.” Jellibean would say anyone who is not overstimulated is unwell.
Nobody in this Lobby is “healthy” by any dutiful definition. The cat called Lothar is morbidly obese, despite the calories burned by swaggering. A marinara puddle named Thaddeus has a larynx like a gnawed straw. His meow is jagged enough to start a punk band called “Frankie in the Airlock.” Gingersnap was present for Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, and her hygiene makes adolescent boys look pristine. Bello is sore afraid.
Bello has a man named Lyle who comes to the Lobby for the sole purpose of Bello. Lyle lays prone, satisfied as a starfish. Allan engages in aerials over Lyle’s belly. Shyla fastens her forehead to Lyle’s brow long enough to upload and download secrets. Lyle does not wear a wristwatch. Bello will come. Bello has all the time.
Most of the cats will be adopted. None of the cats knows to worry about “being adopted.” Some of the cats will be here fifteen years or more. Some of the cats will die. All the Lyles will wail as though for the firstborn. It gets harder, not easier. Loss is invalid in the Lobby, so the absent send jokes on paper airplanes. The skylight over the Lobby has the highest recorded incidence of double rainbows in the northern hemisphere.
The Lobby is an actual place, and it is trying to upgrade to real. There are portholes in the walls and eyelets in the veil. Sometimes, something unconditional spills from the cat bowl and gets all over the people. The bloated and smudged recall that no one has ever been compatible with life. We had best press our foreheads together. That way, we’ll recognize each other when our eyes open for the first time.
Angela Townsend writes for a cat sanctuary, where she bears witness to mercy for all beings. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, seven time Best of the Net nominee, and the 2024 winner of West Trade Review’s 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, SmokeLong, and Terrain, among others. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. Angela has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 34 years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately.
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