They just stared at me. Like everything was normal, like we always woke up in the morning as three identical grey cats. But i remembered, I remembered yesterday I was a person. I spoke words, I ate with a spoon and fork, and I took a bath, a real one, in a tub full of soapy warm water with candles on the window sill and the bath oil...the bath oil.
Oh my God, the bath oil. The grey cats on the label, we looked exactly like them. The bottle had been on the shelf above the window this whole time. I remember asking Angel about it when I was unpacking my bathroom stuff; it looked like a bottle of absinthe, really. It was clear glass with a bright green liquid inside and the label—that label—Victorian cartoon writing, and a young lady feeding smokey grey cats.
Angel stopped staring and walked over to me, her two gold eyes flared in the morning sunlight. She still looked so beautiful, even as a cat, her grace shone through. "Michael, You're a Grey now," she said, but she didn't really say it. She didn't speak a word, she didn't meow, I just somehow heard it, inside.
"Oh my God, what's going on?" I asked, somehow in the same manner.
"You're a Grey. Don't worry, you'll be you again tomorrow," she said. Angel Grey. Oh my God.
"Why?" I asked.
But Mrs. Benoit opened the back door of her Brasserie and stepped out with a saucer of cream and two croissants. "Mon Dieu, trois chats gris!"
"She knows?" I asked.
"I think she's the reason," Angel said. "Or at least part of the reason. We do live above her bakery, in her flat, and I'm pretty sure it's her bottle up there above the window."
"J'ai besoin d'une crème plus," Mrs. Benoit said as she disappeared back inside.
"Oh please," I said to Angel, "please no. I can't be like this. I hate cats."
"I think Raphael could maybe explain it better," Angel said.
"Raphael can barely speak—" I started.
"I speak your language perfectly now, Michael," Raphael said, stepping behind Angel. He moved here from Italy, and yesterday I could barely understand his heavily accented broken english, but now I heard his unspoken words clearly.
"What did you do to me?" I asked him.
He curled around Angel as she sat, both still staring at me. Raphael said, "You'll be fine. Better, really. You were dying, Michael."
"What?"
"No, just kidding," he said, and the two of them bumped noses briefly as if sharing a laugh, like this was funny.
"What the hell is going on! I don't want to be a cat!"
"Yes, it's not funny, the joke, no, not funny," Raphael said.
"No, it's not!" I yelled, sort of. "Tell me what's going on?! I didn't know you guys were like this!"
Angel stepped forward, "we didn't want to be like this either. I'm sorry, there was nothing we could do."
"Mostly because we don't know what's going on either," Angel said. "We rented the rooms upstairs from Mrs. Benoit and suddenly, poof! One day we were cats. But it's only for one day a week, Michael. Mondays, for whatever reason."
Suddenly Mrs. Benoit opened the back door again and set down another saucer of cream. Zaniel, her humungous smokey grey cat with glowing golden eyes stepped out and wrapped himself around her feet. He looked just like us.
"Oh, mon petit chats," Mrs. Benoit said. Zaniel was silent. They turned and went back inside, leaving the three of us in the alley.
"Yeah," Angel said, "we're pretty sure one of them did this to us."
"But we don't know which one," Raphael said. "Or why. My guess is the absinthe stuff in the bathroom, Angel agrees. It must have some spell on it. Old Mrs. Benoit, I think she is older than she looks. Centuries older. But whether it is her or the cat that made her like that, I don't know."
"Who cares!? Look at me! Can I go home? Can I still see my family? I'm gonna get fired if I can't go to work on Monday's!" I said. I couldn't do this, I couldn't be like this every Monday!
"Yes, of course you can still see your family, and yes, you will probably be fired. But, we stay in that apartment for free, Mrs. Benoit doesn't charge us..."
"Well then why have i been giving you rent every—"
"And she gives us groceries..." Angel interrupted.
"Beyond that, we have no idea what happens further down the road," Raphael said. "For now, we prowl. It's fun. You'll like it. Maybe not today, but soon, you'll learn to love it."
"Oh God. Prowling? Cat fights!? How—"
"No, no, don't worry, Michael. There are a few rules, like don't leave this neighborhood on Monday's, it's our territory, and no one messes with us here. Honestly, Michael, it's fine," Raphael said.
"Fine!? How can you say that?"
"Because it is," Angel said. "Michael, think about it. You don't have to worry about money anymore, about jobs, about having the best clothes or anything like that."
"For only one day a week! What about the rest of the time?" I asked.
"We just hang out," Raphael said. "We do whatever we want."
Come to think of it, I hated my job. Not having to see my horrible boss ever again didn't sound that bad. But still... "BUT—"
"And plus, you and I can be together forever now."
"Forever? Do we ever die?"
"We don't know," Raphael said. "Maybe we have nine lives," he said, another joke that only him and Angel thought funny.
"Michael, think about this. Me and you are the same now."
I thought about it. That part didn't seem too bad. Angel was beautiful. I fell in love with her the second she opened that door, when I came to see the room they had for rent. She was definitely it.
"I know you like me, Michael, I saw you staring at the note I wrote yesterday, about needing more milk."
"You did? I didn't think, I mean I thought you..." Oh. She saw me. She watched me. Watches me. She... oh. My stomach flipped, did she watch me because she liked me? Or because she knew this was going to happen? Angel stood up and walked over to me, touching her nose to mine, and I instinctively touched back.
She started to purr. Angel.
"A Grey," Raphael said.
I purred back at Angel. No more job, no more worrying about money, I could still see my family, and I could curl up and nap all day like the kitties I had as a kid.
"Michael Grey," Angel said. And for that moment, it sounded all right.
