Curiosity Killed the Cat

Curiosity Killed the Cat
         A low hum of voices floats through the sweet spring air. The warm breeze is soothing my skin like hot tea on a December evening.  My coffee is creamy and my spirits are high. It is one of the first warm afternoons since the arrival of the prettiest season.  From time to time, the distant shrill of an opera singer seeps into my ears. She must be practicing at the academy just a few steps away. The square isn’t overcrowded and as I let the froth of my caffé latté melt in my mouth, I hear the waiter inform a guest they are out of jasmine rice.  Good job I didn’t want to order that. A couple with big backpacks rings one of the doorbells at number 4, just opposite to where I’m sitting. The singing starts up again and the people at the tables surrounding me look satisfied and content. Maybe even happy. The birds are whistling their sweet nothings from their never-ending catalogue of tunes. I at once feel the lightness of the moment, yet cannot shake the feeling that I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. It may be a contradiction, but that’s what humans are all about, isn’t it?
Before I can reach the end of that thought, he appears and abruptly sits down opposite me. I am somewhat taken aback. Who is he and what does he want? I am in no mood for lonely strangers who want to pour their hearts out to some unsuspecting victim in close range. I am getting nervous, blood pounding in my ears, all my senses so tense I think that they may burst. Please, go away. But he stays, lights a cigarette and before I can muster a word silences me with a look that shoots right through my soul. Who Is He? I am now not of the opinion that he is a psycho maniac just released, but that’s not necessarily good. His messy black hair sits on his head like it’s not even a part of him. I can’t even see what he’s wearing, he has me so fixed with that gaze. Then everything around me ceases to exist..and he speaks.
I feel like I’m drunk, no, worse, like I’m tripping on an A-class drug. But he couldn’t have slipped anything in my now cold coffee-he didn’t have the chance. His first words grab me as if no human had ever spoken to me before. His voice, his articulation and his manner pour down on me like a thunder storm. He poses me one simple, polite question. Do I want him to leave. I methodically turn my head, first left, then right. Am I being hypnotized? I don’t want him to leave. Ever. He has me hooked like a child on sweets. My nerve-endings are on fire, the neurons are racing around my brain as if they were in an Olympic marathon.
Then suddenly, it is very still, very quiet. He leans closer and asks me the million dollar question. What do I think he wants from me? I have gone mute; his face is creasing as he smiles. Well, he tells me, this is a test, of sorts. He is an apparition of my curiosity. The questions I have locked in the deepest, darkest chambers of my soul? He is here to give me insight into a few answers. Now I really think I’m high.
It didn’t take me as long as I had suspected to get over this initial shock and ‘down to business’. He knew exactly what my thoughts had been ever since I sat down at this burgundy table, on the wicker chair. In fact, he was surely aware of all the thoughts, good, bad or just plain evil that I had ever had. Frightening? No. Believable? Maybe. Once in a lifetime? Definitely. I started thinking through the memories of the questions I had silently raised since the moment I arrived at this little café. Where was the couple with the huge bags from? Why are the girls behind me so irritatingly pompous and self-centered? If the homeless women sat two feet away from me on a bench could have any wish granted, what would that be? If the rich business men and their lady friends eating their salads and talking about the millions they spent on their new BMW jeeps, sitting two tables down could have any wish granted, what would that be? Time and space; movement and motion; the past, present and future; all rolled into one big bundle of questionable mess. Am I making up new questions in the hope that I will be all the wiser when I wake up tomorrow? Oh God, will I wake up tomorrow?? Is there life after death? Will there ever be world peace? OK, now I’m just being stupid. For goodness sake, my curiosity is still sitting right opposite me and I’m acting like an idiot He must have a busy schedule too, I think. “I do”, he answers. He then decided to make it easier for me and narrow down this heated debate I started to have with myself. Five questions, only ones that raced through my mind while I had been sitting here. And no cheating-would be no use anyway, he of all listeners would know if I was trying to trick him.
I sink back in my chair. This is tough and exhilarating because I don’t want seem a fool or ask nonsensical questions. So I just delve right in. Not long before my curiosity arrived an elderly coupled walked through the square. They were not only elderly, they were old and fragile. The man had tubes going from his nostril to a box attached to his side. The lady was shuffling her feet along the ground as if there were two lead weights on each. What was most upsetting was that they didn’t look happy or sad. Emotionless faces, liked they’d given up completely. I had thought about what they might have been like 70 years ago and would they want to go back to that now? What kind of lives did they lead? Dammit, two questions down.
I am told that they would not actually be too keen to return to their past. The war was enough once and the trauma of their children moving abroad was bad enough the first time. We obviously do not have as much time on our hands to go through their whole history, but it was a simple one. The old lady was an accountant who made excellent cookies while her husband had been the chauffeur of the local mayors for 50 years. Imagine, 3 million miles without a single accident! I smile and hope my ageing will be blissful.
But now only three left. I know one I will have to ask. The small park is full of homeless couples, men, women, and sleeping bodies on benches. It is the clash of two worlds: the rich and beautiful and the poverty-stricken, garbage smelling humans. But that’s what we all are. So what would these women, who store their lives in plastic bags wish for? I don’t know if I dare hear the answer. Would they wish for a huge mansion in some exotic country with tennis grounds and a swimming pool, 25 bedrooms, a movie room, pool table, three luxury cars? Would they wish for a huge, never ending table of food and drink? But their wishes are much more simple, all they want is to survive tomorrow, just like they have survived today. I don’t really know why I expected anything else. I should have guessed that they were way past fairy tales. No day dreaming for them. I never thought of day dreaming as a privilege for people. At this point, my curiosity wants to get the better of me and bring the deepest thoughts to surface. But I will not succumb! I have two questions left and no matter how hard he stares into my face, I will not let him get the better of me. He can call on my conscience, my heart, whatever he likes, but he cannot meddle with my brain. I think he could not let this thought slip by him, so he eased his bulky body back into his chair and patiently waited, lit up another cigarette.
         I am stumped. I almost know what my last question will be, but the one before last is proving to be the most problematic. Fine, it is stupid, I will kick myself, but I need to know. Where is the couple who went into number 4 from? And how long are they staying? With a sigh he blows the smoke through his nostrils like a bull about to charge, and with a look that suggests I could have been more interesting, replies: “Canada. They are touring Europe. They have jet lag, are not sure which country they are in and will do a tour around the city in two days, not even making it up to the castle. They will eat here every day and when they return home, will probably recall Hungary as one of the littered eastern European countries we went through.” I hope he is wrong. He may be my curiosity, but he is no fortune teller. He has been sitting opposite me for an amount of time I couldn’t possibly measure, but I have already become accustomed. He has an aura around him that tells me we have something in common. In fact, I realize, I own him and not the other way round. But we mutually agree that we couldn’t survive without each other. Although he could sometimes tone down his enthusiasm. I want to surprise him with my last question. He is eager to find out and leans close towards me. He smells of almonds. But before I lose him forever, I look around me; trying to take in the atmosphere of this place from a perspective I will never see it in again. I realize that it is normal and healthy to wonder about the big What If or What Could Have Been If questions, but that more often than not, things are the way they are for a reason. The rich man will always be lusting after more, while the beggar wants what we mostly take for granted. Of course world peace and the end of all poverty would be nice, but I doubt it’s a feat the human race can achieve.
         I look at my curiosity with a cheerful smile. I ask him to pose a question to me. What does he want to know? How contradictory of me-asking curiosity a question. I wonder how many cats will get killed now. Will this cause a massacre in the cat world? “No, it won’t” the big guy replies, “as it happens, that’s what I was just musing on. Why do you often ask yourself if you are too curious? There is no such thing as too many questions. It’s the cat curiosity killed, not you.” No sooner had he uttered those words when my phone rang, and through tears, my friend told me her cat had just been run over.