Frank Exit and I were having breakfast before work at a diner. I told him I’d seen [in8 ID] recently.
“Oh yeah? How’re they doing? I haven’t seen them in the longest.”
“They seems good,” I said, “except they report having some serious hearing problems in one ear.” (Then I added that [in8 ID] told me its preferred pronoun is “it,” which reflects its post-human nature. Frank ignored this part.)
“Shit. We’re all getting so old.”
“How about you?”
“I had all those eye surgeries last year and now I can barely read. It’s really impacted all the to-the-death hand-to-hand fights I seem to always get myself into. My sciatica’s acting up.” Frank paused. “And the days just go by so fast,” he finally concluded.
“Yeah,” I said.
Frank took a bite of the scrambled eggs he said he wasn’t supposed to have due to the cholesterol and said, “Tomorrow is _____’s bday,” and he named our mutual good friend who had died almost eight years ago. He would have been 51 years old.
“Yeah,” I said.
I assembled a bite of toast and scrambled egg on my fork. “How are the cats?” Frank asked me. I took the bite and finished it off with a final slug of OJ, which the diner had provide in a tiny plastic cup.
“Not great,” I said. One of the kittens had been having seizures. “He has one or two every day. We’re giving him some meds for it but they aren’t working yet.”
“What do you tell your kid?”
“That you love the best you can while the beloved is here.”
“You say ‘beloved’?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re a weirdo.”
“You’re a reincarnated dog I’m having breakfast with.”
“Fair enough.”
“Ian told me,” I said after taking another bite of toast, “that Dostoevsky — who suffered from seizures his whole life…” I paused to swallow and then said, “Dostoevsky claimed that these episodes were the moments he felt closest to God.”
“What do you think?” Frank asked.
“I think it’s hard to tell what a cat is thinking.” I said.
“Yeah,” Frank said.
Frank paid for breakfast and, as we were leaving the diner, he put his paw on my shoulder. “Happy birthday to _______” he said.
I smiled and we parted ways.