FICTION: The Unbelievable Luck of Mr Hart

The night started with a crash — multiple crashes. Dish plates, vases, and old coffee mugs from a high school screen-printing class were torn from their wooden cupboards by a disgruntled Ray Hart, who, if asked on a dating site, would generally not describe his favorite pastime as violently thrashing the fine-china, yet here he found himself, sliding across the tile in his favorite grey socks, catapulting the shards of glass from the high cabinets. With each glass that fell, Ray’s banana-tinted dress shirt and charcoal tie jolted from the line of fire. Ray’s furious tornado of destruction raged throughout the shabby studio apartment, deconstructing every visible inch of the 500 square-feet that somehow kept his life bound together. When his storm subsided, Ray found himself on the floor, completely out of breath, his eyes pulsating from flurries of tears brought on by upset confusion. Surrounding him was a meadow of glass, throw-pillows, uncooked pasta noodles, and kitty kibble. His eyes — glossy and cracked — softly focused on a petite, plush mouse that rested in his palm. The side of his thumb gently caressed the worn fabric of the toy until his grasp unlatched itself, allowing his veins to protrude from his skin as if they wanted to jump from his body. Grabbing the toy in violent, thumping motions, the squeaks echoed throughout the floors of the kitchen. The screeches persisted until a microscopic pop vibrated within the toy. All noise had concluded. Ray silently sat in what looked like an abandoned foreclosure from 2008. 

Stumbling outside, his eyes watered. Ray — still in his socks — trudged the hard cobblestone of the alleyway beside his apartment. A brisk breeze forced tears to dwindle onto his cheeks as he stared onward. An unending path with tinges of purple and blue from the midnight sky lured him forward. Slowly creeping through the stony hallway, Ray’s trembling lips popped open and his raspy voice unleashed the first two words of the night: Mister Muffins. He repeated them again and again as he continued down the dirty stretch of asphalt. His words grew louder and more aggressive, feeling as though his throat might shatter, yet he was unrelenting, releasing every ounce of emotion contained within. Ray’s voice echoed while his body flailed forward until his surroundings blurred in a euphoric frenzy. His legs continued to shuffle as if on a drug-induced mission. Eyes wide and hollow, Ray stepped onto a sleepless street, cars whizzing in both directions as if rush hour had just ended. A pair of blinding lights illuminated Ray’s body, but whizzed away immediately. Ray kept walking, his grey socks cushioning the jagged edges of the pavement. A blaring horn blew out his ears as a tower of lights blazed into the side of Ray’s head and hit him with the ferocity of a quarterback’s shoulder. His vision bled into an array of fluorescent light as he felt his body crumble from his temples down to the balls of his toes.

In this moment, he expected to see a significant moment from his life — some type of emotive event that defined his years of living. This moment was nowhere to be found. Instead, he saw bright whites of pastel clouds that he could touch, had he been able to reach out or bend his elbow. For a moment, Ray Hart drifted through space, feeling like a log dumped into a lush stream as he lost all sense of time, location, and memory. Instead of thinking, Ray stared as the clouds in his vision once again transformed into a burning white that faded into the darkest of blacks. The shade slammed onto his conscious and, for some time, there was nothing. 

Ray opened his eyes to a familiar coal-colored sky. Very gently, he lifted his chest from the ground and sprung up from his knees. The atmosphere was silent, minus the cars on the road up ahead, whose bright lights created a five-foot patch of daylight that whirred past invisibly. A brief exhale and Ray turned around, but as he twisted on his worn-down sock, another bright light brought him to a halt- a luminescent light no more than a foot away. Standing completely parallel to Ray was a set of eyes- a reflective set of eyes- eyes surrounded by familiar cheeks and familiar hair and incredibly familiar teeth- slightly yellow teeth with crooked lines engrained deep within them. In fact, it was as if Ray was staring into an overexposed mirror. And just like that, he had fallen back onto the ground. Flat on his bottom, he glared into a translucent figure that undeniably looked like an exact replica of Ray Hart, only this version of himself was wearing a sweater vest with a tasteful ascot on top. He was clean, proper, and revealed no clue that a single ounce of his being was at all disgruntled-  quite the antithesis of the Ray that was dumbfounded and covered in dust from the musty floor. Still, he managed to confront the being and expand his finger in a crude pointing motion that swayed ever so softly toward the glowing figure. It inched closer and closer, stopping just centimeters from the frosty tip of its nose. 

“Don’t touch me,” the glowing one said, sending Ray stumbling back once again. “You’re a damn mess.” 

Ray stopped to admire the gleaming seams of the royal red ascot, “You’re… You’re me, but I think I might be dead—yeah, I died, and I probably went to heaven, but then why the hell would heaven look like a nasty alleyway with a half-sized dumpster on 6th avenue?” Ray’s eyes grew wider, reflecting his thoughts that ricocheted like boiling atoms.

“No, no. This definitely isn’t heaven. If anything, this is a lot closer to hell, with the aroma of a homeless guy’s urine wafting around and all. Ray, find your cat.” The glowing one crossed his arms and looked down on Ray.

Ray’s feet marched forward and he walked through the glowing version of himself, continuing down the alleyway with unrelenting intent. “I’m dead, and the afterlife’s not as cool as everyone says it is,” Ray called out, his voice echoing in every conceivable direction. The glowing one’s light dissipated, creating darkness once again.  

The following day, Ray found himself at the front of a lecture hall where nearly 100 students stared with hollow eyes. An expansive three-panel whiteboard sprawled out just inches from his back, the board read You, Me, and Philosophy in painfully thin lettering. Mr. Hart sipped a few bitter drops of coffee, some of which made their way onto his same banana-colored shirt from the night before. His sipping continued as he blankly stared at 200 blankly staring eyes, each pair as vastly disinterested as the next. Mr. Hart thudded his coffee onto the stained table before him and exhaled slightly. Class Cancelled. After a moment of revelatory shock, the class erupted into a parade of stomps and rattling bags, which he followed behind, leaving the hall as vacant as his stare. 

A short walk later, Ray found himself sitting on a lumber-like cushion beside two bearded colleagues and one with an unbearably outdated mustache. The silence in the room crept into Ray, who anxiously twirled his fingers as he scanned shelves that contained an array of books with titles that screamed for attention: Antichrist, Beyond Good and Evil, and Fear and Trembling. The longer he stared, the more his eyes became foggy. As he struggled to keep them open, he realized that a stream of smoke began to drift across the plush office- the mustached man holding a white vessel that emanated a grey cloud, stinking up the room. Hart’s nostrils flared in rapid succession. “Ah, the old philosopher’s ritual.” He cracked a smile the size of a landscape painting, but the mustached man remained unamused as his top eyelids dropped a centimeter a second. He passed the steaming missile to the bearded professor beside him, Dr. Schultz- PHD from U.C. Berkeley- he likely was familiar with this ritual. Hart began to lose himself in the cloud, for he felt a heaviness clawing onto his cheeks. Upon looking downward, he noticed that it was his turn. Hart tried to crack another smile, but calculated his success rate and dropped it as three sets of glossy eyes stared so deeply into him that they could probably examine his respiratory system. “Just like college all over again. It certainly has been a while, am I right boys?” Hart looked around as he brought the crinkled paper to his mouth and inhaled like a wind propeller- instantly coughing himself into a fetal position. Endless moments passed, and Hart found himself slouching like one of his students-- staring at the untrimmed mustache of Dr. Cornelius, head of the Philosophy department. And, in the midst of his staring, Hart slipped into a certain impending doom. With all three men staring intently at him, he felt the walls caving in, the lights dimming, and a rumbling in his toes. For several seconds, Hart thought he might have become blind, for his mind solely focused on the words that rumbled within. 

Ray, I hate to do this- especially now of all times- but we have to let you go. Your performance seems to have dropped completely, to the point where you’re now utterly apathetic. You’re a great guy, Ray, but this just might not be your forte’. Not everyone can teach, anyway. You know that. We’re still Facebook friends, Ray. You’re fired, Ray. I’m sorry. Best to your future philosophical pursuits.

Ray’s vision returned to him with a punch, but he couldn’t keep his head from bobbing like a deflating balloon. “Makes sense. Guess I don’t really fit in here,” he whispered into the room, the three sets of scarlet eyes still looking at him. Ray’s eyes tried to focus but were infinitely sidetracked by the smoke nebula. “I don’t belong here.” Ray’s legs shook with endless fury and his lips smacked against each other like sandpaper. His head twisted as he looked from one man to the next, but they all stared at him and refused to let go as their façade of sympathy became increasingly evident. He had to escape from their grasp. Ray slowly leapt onto his feet with all the might in his body. He kept his head low to avoid their fiery crosshairs. Once again, he couldn’t move, not until a shadow appeared in the corner of his eye; a shadow with piercingly yellow eyes—a cat. Ray’s torso whipped to the side and his legs took off. His body sprinted ahead, but his mind was three steps behind. The men stared as he vanished. “Goodbye, Mr. Hart.”

Ray soared down the sterile university hallway, chasing the cat, who sped ahead like a bullet. Ray’s feet clapped onto the ground in cyclical motions as he brisked past dozens of students, each entertained by the red-eyed man in business casual attire.

“Mister Muffins, come back! Come back to me!” Unable to stop himself, he continued running until he was well on his way outside the school, chasing the cat down the exterior streets. At the end of his athletic trance, Ray found himself in the hallway of his apartment complex- no cat in sight. As he approached his door, he found a notice, which he unfolded and cautiously examined the enjambment of words. With a cool, blue pen from his pocket, he drew a squiggled cat on the page, covering some of the paragraphs of foreign information. He nodded, looked left and right down the hallway, and shoved the door open only to find three brooding men in what appeared to be hazmat suits with vacuums and tools of decontamination. Ray glaringly stared until a woman in business formal wear broke his focus with her stern brow. Her hard stare examined Ray’s for a long while- his eyes burning and glossy. She gave him a moment to act, but he found no actions available nor any words to defend himself. 

“I should have figured, Mr. Hart. Single guy with a cat—what does he do in a luxurious place like this all day? Philosophy professor-- fictitious occupation. It all adds up, but for some reason I couldn’t see until now.” She stopped her rant to look back at one of the suited men examining a musty pair of underwear. “Are you aware of the hell that you put the neighbors through last night?” Ray looked down at the paper in his hand. He felt the alarming appearance of his drooping eyes and fading spirit. The woman swiped the paper from his hand and stared at the crude drawing as if it were an offensive self-portrait. She sighed with deep disapproval. “Mr. Hart, you have a thirty second notice to leave the apartment. And whatever you’re smoking, I advise you stop immediately, thank you.”

Ray’s face was still emotionless as he dug into his pocket for a few seconds too long. He unveiled his key, looked the woman in the eyes, and dropped it to the ground. The key made a swift chiming melody as Ray saw himself outside.   

Ray spent the remaining hours of the day riding the city bus from place to place, staring at the passing structures with wonder. He slept occasionally, struck random conversation with those who were willing, and listened to a dated mp3 player until its battery died. When he got off the bus, the sun had set, and he walked down a rustic sidewalk that was littered with various indiscernible objects. The sidewalk eventually morphed into an angular alleyway that was robust with hundreds of tents lined against chain-link fences, where old clothes and ancient belongings hung nearby. Disgruntled people walked around the tents, each wearing a sweater or jacket of some sort, fighting the biting winds that wrestled the sunset. Ray in his thin, Bangladeshi-made dress shirt, began to shiver as he approached the end of the tents. A woman smoking a cigarette watched as he shivered with each progressing step. “What’re you doin’ around these parts, think you’re a businessman?” 

Ray looked down at his tattered tie. “No, no. Teacher. Ex-teacher,” he said as he rubbed his hands together, feeling how they slowly became numb. “I’m actually looking for a cat.”

The woman took a long drag of her cigarette and dropped it straight onto the ground. She unleashed a laugh-cough hybrid. 

“A little black cat with yellow eyes, his name was—is – Mister Muffins,” he said.

The woman laughed as she looked him up and down. “Muffins,” she said. Ray kept shaking, getting to the point where the shakes were audibly uncontrollable. She bent down, grabbed a large piece of tan fabric and slung it over Ray. He stuffed his arms into the make-shift sleeves, revealing it to be a blanket-turned-poncho. Fashion statements aside, it provided temporary warmth. As the night approached, he followed the woman into her shabby tent and the two slept with their backs almost touching. Ray settled himself into an almost-comfortable position and drifted off. For a while, everything was silent. During this slumber, the stars trickled light through the thinly-woven walls. 

In the midst of his slumber, Ray was alerted by a distant thump that sent his body jumping upward. His eyes sifted through the darkness until they caught a blaring light that shone from far outside. He shot through the tent’s opening and found himself passing each tent as a glowing object was locked in his sight. Ray’s eyes watered and his hands flailed about. He followed the light into the nearby aqueduct, completely drained of its fluids in place of putrid, ancient glaze that coated the surface. Ray looked down, realizing that once again he was clad in his grey socks, for he felt the cold, coagulative fluid swishing through them; he began to heave, but resisted the aroma as he sped along. The light jumped out of the duct and stopped at the opening of an alleyway- one with no visible light emanating from within it. Ray dashed into the alleyway and slid onto his knees. His breath escaped him and continued to do so. Gasping desperately, he stretched his arm out to steady himself and nudged a light, fluffy mass. He opened his eyes and shook his eyes into focus. Before him sat two striking yellow eyes surrounded by a body of fur that blended into the darkness of the narrow, concrete hallway. As Ray started to look around, the darkness was pierced by dozens of yellow eyes that revealed themselves in the alley. The light had vanished, but an endless sea of feline creatures intimidatingly stared him down. He rose, but kept his back lowered as he tip-toed against the horde of cats, dodging each one individually; some were fat, many were shockingly scrawny, but they all stared at Ray, anxiously meowing at him. In a stressed shiver, Ray studied each cat individually as he moved onward. “Good kitties. Where is Mr. Muffins?” Ray said as his voice cracked. Multiple tiny shrieks shot out from the crowd. Ray followed forward, trying to locate the source of the cries, but they grew louder and louder, to the point where Ray had to cover his ear-drums to prevent them from shattering. He curled into a ball and covered his head as he dropped to the ground and all of his senses suffocated. Once more, there was nothing.

When Ray could finally focus on something, he focused on a shattered plate in the center of a room filled with white; it was his ex-living room- fashionably decorated with dozens of crumbled belongings, just as he left them. Then, an ascot caught his eye- an ascot attached to an illuminated image of Ray Hart, minus the beard stubble and greasy hair. The two figures embarked on a staring contest as dozens of cats entered through the front door of the apartment and surrounded the glowing Ray. Ray scanned through the collection-- countless cats, though he had no interest in any of them. They lazily sprawled across the room as they each stared in their own direction. Ray’s lips opened as he waited for words to come to him. “Who are you?” There was a temporary silence. “What are you, a cat-man?” Ray felt his frustration blooming at last. “I have no clue where I am- I’m not even sure if I have an existence at this point- if I do, I’ve been transported to some hell where a guy can’t catch a damned break- I’ve gotta live on the streets now.” He looked around at the mass of cats and allowed his arms to fall. “I’m not even supposed to be here! What’s next, they’re gonna have me arrested?” Ray felt his breaths punching his ribcage. He launched himself onto the sofa and sprawled himself, blending in with his environment. “If I’m dead, do me a favor and tell me- finish the job- this is killing me.”

With that, his vision blended into the ceiling like a therapy patient’s. The glowing one rose from its seat and tiptoed to Ray. Its eyes casted a ray of light downward. “Not dead, just lost. So undeniably lost.” The glowing one examined the cats all around and smirked. Ray’s eyes met the glowing one’s and held there before they shut with an immeasurable amount of peace. “How long will you be lost for, Mr. Hart?” Ray felt the presence of the glowing one disappear.

“Better to be lost than to be dead,” Ray said.

Darkness. Ray’s eyes remained closed, but only for a moment. When his eyelids gently rose, he saw headlights moving horizontally in a familiar site. In this familiar sight was a familiar body that looked closer to a corpse, but it had a majestic hue that traced the figure’s outline. It was Ray Hart, lifeless and alone. Ray watched as the glow that surrounded the body intensified until it blended-in with the passing headlights and faded with the wind. The body was gone. Ray sat in an alleyway with his back against a stone wall. He looked into the street; there was nothing. He felt a spell of sleep creeping in, so he rested his head against the dirty bricks.

Ray’s eyes opened to a chalky tongue licking his forehead. A precious black cat stood on his lap with content. Ray grabbed the furry creature’s body, lifted it into the air, and gave it a near-spine crushing hug, much to the furry one’s dismay. Ray lunged onto his feet and swung the fur-ball around as he danced and laughed without a single worry in his presence. 

He looked Mr. Muffins in the eyes as he sat down clumsily. “A lot of strange things happened without you around. I got fired, I destroyed our home, got evicted, oh, and I almost died.” Ray stopped to take in a breath of sweet air. “I guess we have a hell of a lot less to care about now.” He embraced the cat again.

Ray trudged through the night-stricken city and returned to the community of tents, where he sat by a fire and enjoyed a street-brewed cup of coffee with a few of his neighbors. Soon enough, a crowd surrounded Ray and basked in the presence of the cat. Ray peacefully watched the nearby skyscrapers during the early hours of the sun’s rising. On a nearby telephone line, a luminous entity floated above the scene, watching Ray as he smiled and spoke with those around him. Mr. Muffins’ head turned and stared into the figure, watching as it gradually faded with the presence of the morning sun. Mr. Muffins’ head turned back and he prepared for a nap.   

— 8/20/2017