Cats Don’t Care About Daylight Savings

The light creeps along the kitchen floor, a softened blue bruise just starting to lose the last of its colour before turning tender to the touch. I hear the cat softly padding his way down the stairs; confused by clocks and human notions of time, he thinks it is time for breakfast. I don’t have the heart to break it to him.

Last night, I dreamt about them again. All moon-faced and lovely and it stirred that familiar ache. My would-be babies. It is not so much maternal as it is habitual. My sister would call it eldest daughter syndrome; not having anyone to take care of is driving me mad. I think, mostly though, it is loneliness. Nobody tells you that motherhood can be caused by loneliness. I try to picture my mother, alone in a foreign country; my father making their living. Then me, a balm to those late nights when the creaks and groans of the old boiler could be masked by the hungry cries of an infant. I wonder if, even then, she was lonely. If she had to sit in her too cold kitchen and brace herself for a lifetime of these aches.

I want to pick up the phone and ask her. To hear her breathing down the line, equal parts surprised and understanding. Maybe she’ll tell me it is a generational thing or biological or just life. I can’t imagine what answer would comfort me the most. Probably none. I want to ask her what the cure is. What will leave me the most unscathed.

I’m thinking of all those who came before me. What they had to sacrifice and what their bodies had to go through to get me to this point. It quickly sets my lungs afloat then down again. One, two, inhale, exhale. The human body, expanding, deflating, remoulded around the shape of another life. Another side effect, another version of yourself you will never get back.

The cat is scratching at the door. I want a few more moments alone before the ache comes back. To push out the morning light the way it came in, but the world is a closed fist. I press a hand to my belly and say a prayer then, though I’m not sure what I’m praying for exactly. I think of my moon-faced babies, non-existent, intangible – their ghostly apparitions crowding around me and biding their time. I want to tell them I’m not ready yet, that I never will be but that it does not stop me from longing for them, for needing to run as far away as possible. It is a fragile thing, to both want and fear the thing you most desire in the world. Am I even allowed to wish for this?

It feels like a secret I must keep to myself. Too sacred, too pure a want to let anyone else in the world know. I carry it around with me, heavy in my pocket, light on my tongue. It is between me and my babes.

I know that someday I will sacrifice my body. That, if nothing else, the ache will eventually catch up to me. That I will no longer be able to contain all my desires and doubts. I memorise the way my body falls and dips and smooths out because once it is gone, it’s gone. Then it becomes something else entirely. I say a prayer for all the mothers. All unified with their strange new bodies and their loneliness that isn’t loneliness. If they take me into their private world, then maybe that is half the battle won.

I let the cat in through the door and go for what is warm and alive right now. His slow-moving body twining between my feet, urging me on for food. The kitchen is warm with the day’s sun; it is something to look forward to, something to move towards. The clocks are all wrong.

Samiha Meah is a graduate of Cardiff University where she studied English Literature and Creative Writing. She currently works as a Fiction Editor for Lucent Dreaming, a small Welsh magazine publication that specializes in the surreal. You can find her on Twitter @sammymeah.