Ailurophile

         When I was younger, I used to spend every Friday night at the bar across the street. I would return home from the week of work down at the oil rig in the bay and I would change into a pair of tattered blue jeans and a colored t-shirt, every week alternating through the colors of the rainbow. I would grab, without fail, the worn, leather journal that still rests by my bedside and without a worry in the world, would make the trek across the street.
I specifically remember how I would direct a slight wave at the security guard letting people into the main doors before slipping into the back alley and entering through the kitchen. Everyone knew me, and I knew them. These were the people whose stories filled my mind; the people I had taken and altered; made into the characters I have so badly craved for the entirety of my life; the people who live and breathe in my mind; whose stories I still, to this day, have not recorded on paper.

***

It was almost as if she never left; the stern faced, older lady that seemed to live in the booth at the far corner of the room. I remember how I would sit down to watch her from across the bar, taking out my notebook and staring at the blank pages, wishing words onto the pure, white surface as my mind flew through the endless list of possibilities to explain the woman in front of me. It’s what I always did; for everyone I saw, but there was something about her figure, small, yet sturdy; her face, rough with wrinkles and age, but smiling none the same; the dreary garb that always seemed to adorn her body. She stood out, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never recreate her story, nor could I summon the nerves to ask her of it.
So instead I would sit, drink in one hand, journal in the other, and watch until my eyes
began to close with fatigue, causing the glass in my hand to fall to the ground and shatter; every Friday, without fail. I would then wake up and each time, I would look up to the booth across the room to find it empty; devoid of any evidence that might prove the existence of previous inhabitants.

***

To this day, I remember the lady from the bar, watching me out of the corner of her eye, her gaze like that of a cat. I remember because I could never forget; not because I have written it down, for I haven’t. I can’t.
All my life I have created; stories, characters, complex plots that reside only in my mind. I have stood as the proud author of countless books.
Yet I never learned to write.