A Mountain Lion Floating Over a Liar
Kevin walked through the park lost in thought. The morning dew hadn’t burned off yet so the air was cold and damp. Sunlight broke up through the leaves of the trees overhead and spread out on the ground before him. The grass seemed almost purple from the shade and the bike path a deep black tar that sunk a little beneath his feet. Above him the mountain lion growled as branches slapped at it’s face and sides, suspended with it’s legs hanging limply beneath it. It was his curse. His punishment for being a liar.
He wasn’t any worse than any other person. It’s common knowledge that everyone lies. People do it all the time to greater or lesser degrees no matter who they are. From what he could understand after weeks of reflection, his problem arose because he lied at work. It was a simple lie. Nothing that he considered big enough to warrant having a lion suspended over his head for the rest of his life but his manager asked if he had finished a project that was due. He hadn’t. He had spent the majority of the day surfing on the internet and hadn’t done a thing. It wasn’t anything new for him, he always procrastinated until the last few hours before something was due but he always got his work done. So this project was like any other. He still had four hours to finish his work. But when he was asked about it, he said he was almost done and would have it by the end of the day. His manager seemed to squint a little as he said, “Ok. Let me know when you have it ready then.” As if he knew Kevin wasn’t telling the truth. He knew it was only going to take a few hours and it should of been done already, but his manager was always under the assumption that when people weren’t performing as they should, they were probably online looking for a new job. So Kevin realized this had larger consequences. He followed with, “I would of been done already, but my computer was acting up. I had to restart it and run tech tool.” That’s when the mountain lion suddenly appeared over his head.
It was in the break room. His manager fell to the floor pulling the rack of coffee cups down with him. He scrambled away clutching at anything he could to propel himself backwards out the door. Kevin did the same. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what was happening. He thought maybe the creature was up in the drop ceiling and had suddenly fell through. The only problem was that it continued to hover above him, growling and pawing at him without actually reaching. He, like his manager, scurried away on his back like a crab, but the lion followed, suspended directly over him. Kevin screamed. From what he could tell the lion was dropping down on him in slow motion. When he scrambled through the door, the lion bumped the top of the door frame to float closer to him. As Kevin slid out into the hall the lion cleared the door and rose to the ceiling again. “What the fuck is going on?!” He yelled. Finally, he gathered the courage to turn and run, ducking, to the front door and out into the street. He thought he was safe, but instantly worried about the others trapped with the lion in the building. He turned to the front doors and dug in his pocket for his phone. As he dialed 911 he heard a loud roar from over head. He looked up, then instantly fell to his knees dropping his phone. The Lion was suspended against the blue sky above him, it’s tail swatting left and right and it’s paws slowly moving around in circles trying to gain footing. He turned to run back into the building, but he saw that the mountain lion always turned with him, so whatever direction he faced, the mountain lion faced as well. He ran for the front doors, looking up, and saw that the lion stayed directly overhead and gained in speed with him. He fell on the front steps still looking above him. The lion floated down with him, always keeping the same distance between it and the top of Kevin’s head. He turned and ran for a picnic table that was around the side of the offices. Since the thing was above him he wanted to put something between it and himself. As soon as he slid under the first bench the lion was instantly upon him clawing and biting. Kevin screamed and scurried through to land on the opposite end of the table. He rolled on his back yelling for help and kicking at the animal he expected to be on top of him. But it wasn’t. Once he was out from under the bench the lion was floating helplessly in the air above him.
It took him almost an hour of random dashing for cover before he realized that the thing was going to stay over his head whether he liked it or not. He learned to avoid trying to hide under things, especially small areas where the ceiling is lower because the lion would magically slide in with him. He positioned himself in the middle of the service road out front by the highway away from any trees to tried to think. All he could do was stand completely still and hope the problem went away. Cars on the highway slowed to a crawl. Some pulled over on to the grass to take a picture. Kevin called to them for help, but they either laughed and asked how he did it, or they simply clapped. Eventually, seeing the spectacle on a traffic camera, the police showed up and told him to stop the magic show since it was slowing rush hour traffic. He tried to explain that he had nothing to do with it. That’s when they called animal control.
Three men showed up with long sticks with wire nooses dangling on the end. They managed to get one around it’s neck and two hind feet but struggled to pull it down. It was impossible. This only made the lion more agitated. When the police put Kevin into the squad car the three men with sticks were dragged along as the lion followed and slid in through the top half of the back door. Kevin sustained some serious injuries as the thing attacked. It took a minute for the officer to figure out what was happening and pulled Kevin out by his ankles. Soon paramedics showed up to treat him and tranquilizer guns were used on the animal to get Kevin safely in the back of the ambulance without more damage. Everyone at his office had stayed and sat on the front steps to watch the proceedings. As Kevin lay in the back with a slumbering lion hanging inches away from his face he remembered the project that was due, and how his manager would find out he hadn’t even started it.
Since then Kevin had time to reflect. It took him a while to try to understand what happened. But his best guess was that he was being punished for lying that day in the break room. He couldn’t understand why though. He didn’t have a history of excessive lying, if anything his greatest sin was masturbation. That was something he did to excess, four times in a day on average. It was as natural and necessary to him as taking a shower. If a lion suddenly appeared overhead one day while he was doing that he wouldn’t be too surprised. So in this case he kept trying to think back, look for patterns in how he conducted himself at work that would have this make sense.
The city put him up in the gym of a community center for the first week. They fed the animal with meat on a pole which was prepared by the local zoo. Scientists, veterinarians, and oddly the CIA all came to inspect what was happening but no one could come up with any type of answer. He lived in an apartment, so he had to move back in with his parents who erected a huge tent in their back yard with a two story ceiling to accommodate him. He spent night after night during the summer laying on his cot staring up at the sleeping lion growling and yawning as it tried to turn over to no avail. He tried reasoning with it. Crying. Screaming and even making friends with it while he was drinking. But the animal was just as confused and unhappy as he was. The local news had been following the story since the first day and this drew the attention of all types of crazies to his enormous tent door. Mainly psychics. They told him it was a type of sign that he needed to change his ways. He tried, but it didn’t make a difference. He refused to lie, but due to masturbation it was nearly impossible where his parents were concerned in his need to use their laptop. So instead he decided to just not speak. He made it known by a piece of paper he carried with him that he was on a vow of silence. When reporters, his parents, or anyone else asked why he’d just point up at the lion swimming around overhead. But after a while he gave that up too. He offered to help feed the homeless and even go to church, but none of those organizations would have him. He also made the effort to give up the act of self love. But in the end nothing changed. After a while he was back to telling small fibs and even masturbating when he knew the lion was sleeping. Every day the local zoo would return to feed the animal and check on it’s health. To prevent the creature from deficating or urinating on him, they tried to fit it with a type of diaper, but the mountain lion grew angry and kicked it off. They warned him that soon it would be fall, then winter. He had to find a solution soon because the tent wouldn’t hold in enough heat to keep him warm. The governor worked out a deal with the zoo to house him there but he already felt like some type of side-show since he couldn’t stand under a shower head and needed to be hosed off by his parents. The lion would have to be washed first, because for the next half hour the remaining moisture would drip on Kevin’s head. Over time he had picked the optimal time for when he could shower because since the diaper experiment had failed the animal would relieve it’s self on him throughout the day. One time it even sprayed some type of milky substance on him out of anger. It smelled horrible. He couldn’t imagine having to suffer those indignations behind glass with the zoo keepers having to help him. By late August he was a nervous wreck. He didn’t know where he was going to live and he couldn’t stand the pain of living under the creature any longer.
His friend Aaron came over to the tent one night. He hadn’t seen him or any of his other friends since the lion appeared so he was both happy and embarrassed to let him in. Aaron brought whisky and a metal grate he had welded himself. He explained that if there were enough openings in the surface maybe the lion wouldn’t force it’s self under. Kevin tried to explain that if he even holds a pen up over his head the monster would suddenly appear underneath it. He screamed and curled into a ball when Aaron, drunk, positioned the grate over Kevin’s head. The lion popped underneath it but surprisingly didn’t attack. It sniffed him, and actually licked his face and emitted a low purr. Kevin laughed and petted the mountain lion. He drank from the bottle and the three spent the night laughing and talking.
Aaron fancied himself a new-age scientist thanks to his discovery of Deepak Chopra. He blended the more convenient aspects of Chaos Theory, sub-atomic physics, and eastern mysticism to fit a grand theory of pretty much everything. If there was any type of problem it could be solved or understood by his special brand of belief. He told Kevin that what was happening was a manifestation of his own fears. “Like the Bell Witch!” Aaron said.
“What do you mean?”
“The Bell Witch was an evil spirit that tormented a little girl and her family for years. It’s main goal was to see that the father of the little girl died.”
“So?”
“So after beating the crap out of the girl and harassing the family, it finally did kill the father by poison I think,” he said, thinking about it for a moment. “But it turned out that it was a manifestation created by the girl because he father used to rape her.”
“Jesus!” Kevin said, pulling the bottle away from his mouth. The lion groaned and turned its head to the other side of Kevin’s chest.
“Yeah I know. It started on one of the nights when he was in the middle of raping her, there were sounds of large rocks being thrown at the roof of the house. All the beatings that the ghost did to the girl after that was a form of self punishment.”
“So you think I was raped?” Kevin whispered, trying not to wake up the beast.
“I don’t know. I think you have created this though for some reason. Were there any signs before this? Like large rocks being thrown against your house?” Kevin thought for a moment. Nothing came up. A bulb went out in his apartment hallway, but he didn’t think that amounted to anything.
“I honestly have no idea what that would be.”
“Another thing could be that it was a freak thing that was going to happen to someone at that moment in time.”
“What do you mean?”
“All atoms have electrons that circle around it, like our moon does around the earth.”
“Yeah.” Kevin said. He had heard this before. As Aaron spoke he started playing with the sticker on the bottle, peeling it off in little strips and rolling them into tiny balls. He had managed to balance the metal grate on the lion who was now laying comfortably on it’s side so he had both hands free.
“So everything is made up of these atoms, but there is a lot of empty space between the atom and the electrons. Yet we’re solid. But theoretically there is nothing preventing us from walking through a wall, and there’s a belief that at some point someone could pass their hand through a table on a freak occurrence.”
“What does this have to do with my lion?”
“Well, what makes my group of atoms come together to form me? What makes your group of atoms form you? There are atoms between us right now, how come we don’t have some huge umbilical cord connecting us? How come the atoms around you couldn’t randomly form a mountain lion that is suspended over you at all times?”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Either way, you have this floating over you and you can’t do anything about it. I believe there was a perfect collection of events that would have had this cat floating over anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“And I created it.”
“No I ditched that idea. This one makes more sense.”
“So,” Kevin said, sounding tired, “Why would this lion appear? Did it already exist somewhere and it was transported here? If it was just ‘created’ then how come it seems intelligent and not some stupid sack of hair and skin with no soul. Why didn’t I get a hot chick instead. And if I did get a hot chick, would she have never existed? Or would she be some sack of fluid and skin in the shape of a hot chick that just drools and farts? You haven’t really thought this through.” The lion yawned and rolled over using the grate to pin it’s self on to it’s back.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Aaron said, seeming a little angry that his theory was being contested. He was used to Kevin passively agreeing with him.
“From what you say, I have some sack of crap made up of atoms that resembles a mountain lion following me all the time. But this thing is sentient. And not sentient like a kitten but sentient like a mountain lion that has been around for a while. It seems like some kind of curse or punishment because I have a living thing with life experience tormenting me.” After that the conversation died down. Aaron’s interest at trying to figure out the nature of the mountain lion was gone. He soon found an opportunity to get up and leave, taking his grate with him. Both Kevin and the lion seemed a little saddened that the distance between them was restored. As Kevin slept pieces of feces fell away from the animal and into his lap.
Kevin took the offer to live at the zoo. It wasn’t as bad as he thought. They modified a large room where they had concrete rocks and fake trees to replicate a mountain on the upper half. The sky-painted ceiling was low enough where Kevin would sort of wedge the lion against it and one of the upper parts of the rock cliff so it could pretend to walk around. Since it was always directly overhead he had to walk back and fourth with it, the lion putting it’s legs on the rocks at an angle like it was in a carnival fun house with tilted floors. He and the lion learned to get along, he would hold up one hand so that it popped in underneath it and he’d and play with it. When the lion looked uncomfortable he would walk over to a low overhang and lie down so that it could roll around and sleep on it’s side. They ate together, played catch with a rubber ball, and learned to do tricks, all to the delight of the people who peered in through the large glass walls. When spring came he would take it for walks around the park that the surrounded the zoo. Kids would pose for pictures where parents laid on their backs to frame Kevin, the child and the lion overhead. Sometimes women would talk to him, but just like in life before the mountain lion appeared, it never came to much. Which was fine. He was so wrapped up in learning how to coexist with the beast that he barely thought of women anymore. He had considered what it would be like if he had sex. It would be impossible unless they did it standing up, he thought that if he was on top it could be possible but he wouldn’t want to risk it. The thing had already sprayed people near him it didn’t trust, happening once during an interview with a local talk show. They didn’t edit that part of the footage out either. They thought it illustrated perfectly the daily struggle he had to endure, or that’s what they told him when he called to complain.
Then one day he did meet someone. He was sitting on a bench with an ice cream like he did every afternoon. He would watch people jog by or bike in small groups along the paths. It had only been an hour since the creature had been fed so he knew he was safe to wear a clean, white shirt and pressed pants. He never had a reason to dress up anymore now that he was unemployed, so he took to the same logic retired people did when it came to formal wear in public. A woman sat down next to him and started with the same opener he always heard, “You’re the guy with the lion!” He looked at her. She was wearing a long dress with her hair pulled into a bun. She looked like she was in her mid twenties.
“Yes.” He said.
“What’s it like?”
“Pretty horrible at first, but I’m getting used to it.” He couldn’t figure her out. She dressed like an old woman, or a librarian, but her personality didn’t fit her reclusive, crazy- cat-lady style.
“Does it ever attack you?” She laughed. Normally he would find an excuse to end the conversation at that point, but he was intrigued by her warm personality and how she kept putting her hand on his knee when making a point. They carried on this way for a while. He didn’t mind it once she got past the formalities of his condition. The few friends he had abandoned him months ago. Something about talking to him through the glass wall at the zoo, or hearing the lion roar while on the phone was unsettling to them. They talked about their favorite movies and books. He learned that she worked at a nursing home and had to deal with feces and urine on a daily basis, which made him feel slightly better. Especially when enough time had passed that he knew the lion was going to relieve it’s self. He moved to the opposite side of the path from the bench and allowed it to happen without hitting her. He had learned to lean forward when this happened so that it went down his back, that way he didn’t have to deal with as much of the smell. She helped wipe him with a handful of napkins that she fetched from the ice cream stand near by. He told her about his old job as a salesmen for a small ad agency and some of the dumb things that clients would ask for. They laughed and continued talking until the trees grew dark and the sky turned red. She got up to leave and told him she would be back the next day. The next morning he waited nervously at the bench for her. He criticized himself for sitting there, telling himself that she wouldn’t show up. He never even learned her name. It was a habit he picked up as a salesmen because he was bad with remembering names. So it was easier to just avoid learning it until someone else told him. For him names always fit the personality. When he didn’t know someone well enough he could never remember their name. But after he had them pegged, their name would fit perfectly. When she did show up it was one of the first things he asked, making light of the fact that they had talked to intensely that he never learned it. “You already knew my name,” he added, “but I never got yours. I guess that’s the curse of being the lion guy.”
“My name is Gretchen.” She said softly, putting her hand on his. ‘Gretchen?’ he thought. ‘What the hell is with this woman?’ They spent every day this way. Walking along the park even when the spring rains gave away to hot afternoons and mosquitos. She would wear summer dresses and bring food for them to eat on the lawn. She never seemed to have anywhere to go. He asked her when she worked, and said he felt bad that he was occupying all her time. But she assured him she didn’t mind. She liked meeting him. “But don’t you have friends? Family? I’m not complaining, but you spend your entire day here with me. Do you work nights or something? I don’t want to wear you down.”
“It’s ok!” Gretchen laughed, and continued telling him about the time she had been to Florence. After a few more visits he didn’t care, he enjoyed seeing her and hearing about all her traveling experiences. From what he could tell she had been everywhere.
Soon she started to open him up to doing more than live the sheltered life he had created for himself at the zoo. She began by asking him to take walks that led outside the park and into the neighboring suburbs. They watched outdoor plays and held hands while listening to Mozart at the bandshell. People around him actually cheered when the lion roared at the end of one piece. She even convinced him to make a trip into the city on the back of her dark green pickup truck to eat at a restaurant patio. At first he said no, but she changed his mind at the hilarity of tying a string to the lions hind leg like it was a balloon. It was a night he would always remember fondly. Even when urine dribbled from above onto his neck while they enjoyed their wine. They ended the night at the park. She brought a bottle of wine for them to share as they laid on their backs and looked up at the mountain lion silhouetted against the stars. She kissed him. Her lips were warm and soft. He leaned on his side and gently put his hand through her hair to the back of her neck as they talked and continued kissing. She smelled amazing. The kissing grew more passionate. He carefully crawled on top of her and they made love in the itchy, wet grass.
They met almost every day for the rest of the summer, their stolen moments becoming more frequent which nearly resulted in their getting caught. Fall came early and along with it an uncomfortable cold that they both tried to pretend wasn’t there. They would meet wearing increasingly more clothes and talk about ways they could be alone together. The zoo wouldn’t allow her into his concrete ‘den’ because they didn’t want to be liable for anything happening to her after he had snuck her in one night and she made the mistake of crawling on top of him. Annoyed at being carted around in the back of her truck, he tried to surprise her at her work by curling up with the lion in the back of a taxi, but the thing was nervous in confined spaces and he learned that it wasn’t worth it. He made it to the nursing home, but he was so scraped up that he turned and walked all the way back, nearly catching the lion in power lines and over hanging street signs. She would come to visit him every once and a while during the winter to hold conversations with him through the glass or for small visits out in the freezing snow. Kevin resented the lion for it. He noticed that Gretchen wouldn’t even make light of it anymore. He could tell that she too was increasingly frustrated and tired. When spring came they had less visits together. He tried to pull her back in, but she always had to work at the senior home. One day on the phone she finally admitted to him that she loved him, but she couldn’t be around the lion any longer. Her voice wavered and cracked as she spoke. She said that she had changed over the winter, and that he wouldn’t recognize her anymore anyway. She told him about how she used to dream of the two of them being together, of getting married and having children. But they could never have that life in a zoo and with life being different now, she wouldn’t have that second chance. Soon she never called at all. He tried contacting her at the home, but she was never available. He realized that he needed to do something. He had to decide between his future with her, or the lion. So one morning he walked out to one of the more secluded paths in the park. A path that took him through thick trees to a corner that people rarely ever jogged or biked to. He intentionally walked close to the edge of the path so the lion had to endure branches from the pine trees hitting it in the face. It roared from the pain and alternated between swiping at the branches and at him. Kevin slowed when he made his way up an incline. The trees cleared at the top and from the path Kevin could look down at the disc golf course and picnic tables below. It was early enough that no one was there. He looked up at the lion which was still growling and swiping at him from above. Tears started to stream down Kevin’s cheeks. For a moment he began to hold one hand up to bring the creature down, but it’s anger changed his mind. After a few moments Kevin walked toward the power lines, and it’s transformer at the far side of the hill.
Kevin could tell that the zoo keepers didn’t believe it was an accident. They did try to console him when he came back sobbing uncontrollably, but didn’t show the same sympathy when he explained what happened. He should of thought that is seemed suspicious that he didn’t own a pair of running shoes, or ever expressed any interest in taking it up. So of course it seemed odd that he would decide to do it that morning. Between them, their expressions were a mixture of pity and anger. Whatever their opinion, the same person never came in twice to refill his toilet paper, take out the trash or hand him his food.
His body hurt. When the lion connected with the transformer it curled up into a ball, like a strip of paper lit on fire. He actually felt a shock of the electricity run through his body as he watched. He didn’t know if that’s what happens when you stand next to an electrical event, or if Aaron was right about atoms connecting him to the animal. Doctors looked him over and decided he was ok. He laid down in his den and tried to rest, but couldn’t when he opened his eyes and saw the blackened shape floating above him.
As the day wore on he could feel pieces of it fall down on his neck and shoulders. The press wouldn’t leave the glass wall. Kevin was too tired to do anything but lay there as they trained their cameras on him. He watched some television that night trying not to think about what he had done, but the local news would lead the end of every batch of commercials with an announcement that the lion was dead. None of them showed any footage of the lifeless shape floating opposite the glass wall. They instead showed a still image taken a year ago of him smiling and surrounded by children. Taken, of course, from the ground up to show the mountain lion overhead. The next day a group of zoo keepers perched up on the top of the fake cliff to chop the carcass up. Local news cameras filmed the process and commented on how unfortunate it was that the pieces couldn’t be removed. They floated above him, swimming around, bumping into each other with muffled thumps as he paced the den. He knew Gretchen would see it, or read about it. He already understood that it was over between them, but he still held out hope that something would spark in her again. He tried calling her once more, but could never actually dial the last number.
Over the next few days the pieces of burnt lion rotted above him. Then in the following weeks they dried and broke up into smaller parts. Soon it was a cloud of dust swirling in on it’s self. Then it was gone.