Fenway Belle
Fenway Belle is a queer artist, filmmaker, and writer from New Jersey. Her work explores intimacy, loneliness, and the colors in between. She studied Creative Writing and film at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the recipient of multiple Adamson Awards for her nonfiction and screenwriting work.
The Tenant and the Visitor (Short Fiction)
My landlord has been ill. I could smell the sickness for a month before she stopped going in the garden. When she sits, the couch cushions swallow her up. Sometimes she even forgets my dinner. I remind her gently by tugging at her lacy sleeves and humming gently. She says “Oh. Oh my,” and then she’ll toddle to the kitchen and stand there for a minute or two. I’ll come up behind her and hum at her again. She says, “Oh my,” and she even says, “My goodness,” which means it’s bad. Eventually, I get my bowl and she sinks back into her cushions and I return to my window. My favorite place in the house has always been the third-floor window. The sun stretches across the floor through the blinds and I lay in the warm stripes of light. Outside, gold and red stretch along the treetops.
***
I like my landlord. We have an understanding. We’ve had one since we met. Most of the time I mind my business and she minds hers. When she feels lonely, she sits on the couch and waits for me and when I feel lonely, I’ll join her. She’ll scratch my head if I allow her, and she’ll feel better and I’ll feel better too. Her nails are long and thick and lavender-colored immaculately painted talons that rival my own beautiful claws. When she paints them, I like to watch her when she blows on them softly. Her thin wrinkled lips squish together into a perfect “O” which makes me want to touch her mouth.
***
My landlord has a visitor staying with us now. He upsets the delicate balance we have here. He smells like her. I wonder if he is part of her litter. He drags string across the floor, coos at me, and grunts when I don’t engage with his buffoonery. When I try to sit with my landlord, he plunks himself roughly between us and scratches me so hard that chunks of my lovely fur come out and float through the air; like the flurries of snow that dance outside my now chilly windowsill.
***
My landlord’s nails are yellow and crooked, and she does not run them gently across my head when I sit by her. I wish the sickness would leave so I can lay beside her and knead the fabric of her clothes while she hums for me like we used to. We spent our afternoons growing old together. But when she looks at me her eyes do not see me. I lay in my spot on the windowsill and shiver at the chill outside.
***
The visitor is very rude at dinner time. I make my way down to the kitchen ready for my meal and there is the visitor spooning mush into my landlord's mouth. He hasn’t even remembered my dish. I wait and wait for my food, politely humming, and all he can do is say “Away!” When he finally brings my food he violently shakes it around the dish and makes clicking noises. I do not like it. Sometimes the visitor whimpers late at night after he puts my landlord away in her room. I do not like that either.
***
My landlord left today. The visitor made whimpering noises when they took her away in a bag. I wonder when the visitor will leave, but he doesn’t. He brings more things into the home that smell like him. We do not acknowledge each other. I stay by my window most of the day, watching the treetops turn green. At least he has stopped shaking my food at dinner and he has even stopped trying to scratch me.
***
My windowsill feels warm. The visitor has been whimpering for hours. He is on the couch and he shakes and shivers and whimpers. When the light hits him a certain way he looks just like my landlord. He smells like her, too. I decide to sit next to him. He stretches his hand out and I don’t flinch when he touches me. He runs his fingers through my fur; it’s clumsy but not unpleasant. I close my eyes and if he keeps his breathing quiet I can pretend that maybe, maybe he is my landlord.