“Sam, what are we going to do with you?”
Dr. Maya Lotus slowly pressed down on Sameera’s back right leg to feel her injury.
“Will she be okay?” Jackson’s normally soft voice was quivering to a whisper. He was in the room when Sameera fell off the window sill and didn’t realize it until after Sameera kept walking on a bad limb that made things worse.
“Doctor Lotus! She stopped moving!” He looked up into Maya’s deep brown eyes before burying his face back into his hands.
“Jackson, it’s okay—” Maya lifted an arm to pat Jackson on the back but stopped short. “You’re not to blame,” she said her voice cracking with a hint of amusement.
“Sam’s okay, she is completely fine. Watch this,” she turned around to grab the purple ribbon on the desk behind her, the one that used to hold together a bouquet of chocolate flowers that were now scattered around.
As Maya turned back around, Sameera quickly shut back her one eye that was checking out the chocolate.
But she didn’t last long. Sameera opened her eyes and went after the ribbon the moment it touched her nose and started bouncing over her face. A surprised Jackson’s “whaa-at—” got drowned out by Maya’s simultaneous big laugh.
“Sam is a jokester, she was just messing with you.”
“Well, I deserved it, it’s my fault she’s this injured.”
“That’s not true!” Maya interjected.
“But it is! I was listening to music. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes…” Jackson was returning to his chattery self.
“—I tend to daydream when ‘Mykonos’ starts playing. I love that song. I dream of traveling to Greece with my girlfriend Addy whenever it comes up. She wants to join an archeological dig there. The thought of portraits of people I can take on my travels just sends me into this daydreaming trance, I don’t really care where I go but I feel transported just by the idea of Greece.”
“So you think that’s when Sam fell?”
Jackson didn’t respond. “...But I know for sure Sam didn’t fall before I started listening to that song. I thought it was a song about happy longing by the way, but Addy told me it has a sad story behind it. Anyway, I took my earbuds out right before listening to it when I thought a family might come into the room to adopt a cat and Sam was okay then. But they decided not to… the family that is. Ramy tried, but you know how some people get at the mention of,” Jackson lowered his voice “of, senior…” But Jackson was still in Sameera’s earshot.
“Sam isn’t a senior, she’s just what we call a mature adult cat. Ramy just keeps some of them together with seniors, not sure why since they are then placed together with a more difficult adoption group but perhaps behavioral…”
“I told you Addy’s studying to be an archeologist, right?” Jackson was now fidgeting with the stuff on the shelves.
“No, I mean yes when I met her but, please don’t touch—”
Jackson pulled out the microscope on the table and leaned in for a peek at the empty petri dish, unaware that he had exposed hamster Tammy who had been hiding behind the microscope.
“—do you mind not playing with the… ARGH,” Maya groaned as Sameera scratched her. She was wriggling under Maya’s hands trying to jump off the exam table, her eyes fixated on the wall behind the microscope.
“Sam, calm down. What’s going on, what’s there?” Tammy was faster than Maya and was behind another box by the time she had turned to look in her direction.
“There’s nothing there, come on now we still have a lot to do for you,” she flipped Sameera onto her back on the table, one hand on her belly and the other petting under her chin to keep her calmly in place.
“I’ve been developing this new style of photography, I think I may really be onto something.” Jackson lifted his head back up from the microscope, having taken too long for someone who was simply looking at an empty dish and unaware as Maya wrestled to keep Sameera still behind him.
“Looking at an empty space is so reflective, it makes you self-aware…” he mumbled dreamily turning around to face Maya but his eyes still wandering around.
“Sam, can you play dead again to snap him out of this?” Maya smirked at her.
Sameera however only cared about two things at that moment: finish ripping up the ribbon into the tiniest of pieces for whatever reason, and find out who hired hamster Tammy to eavesdrop as soon as possible.
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