Chapter ELEVEN Regrets of the Undercat

I needed to be sure of her identity. I source through the remaining crumpled photos, thoughts drifting away to the possibilities of different endings. I know this may sound absurd, but I am more than just a pink tuft of rubber with a curl around my forehead. I am more than just an imaginary singer, with hopeless dreams of getting an audience to listen through my hypnotic lullaby.

Clearly, she was a good (wo)man. The result of the investigation was shocking. I never imagined that Smittenpoise was just the code name for her velvet masquerade. Having only a mere glimpse of her history, with the poison tipped dart as whatever little evidence she left behind, I gaze into the darkness of night, the only tiny ray of hope coming from the crescent shaped rock that illuminated the night sky.

I reach over to caress the edge of your still face. The purplish black lipstick still stained those cold lips of yours; lips possibly used as a tool to accomplish justice, or to exact revenge. I sing a lullaby, with the graveyards reflecting the echoes of my voice. I sing it knowing you’re asleep, yet hoping that you’ll listen. I sing it wishing that you might still have one last chance for redemption.

I barely knew you, yet intuition tells me that I murdered your identity. Perhaps in the wake of my insensibility, I sung you to sleep, and you drowned in the harsh rivers of city life. I sense it with my intuition. There is no way where you would just turn suicidal and plunge yourself into the cold dark waters.

Then nature of my task was ironic; I was sent to investigate the links you had in the bigger picture; yet I stumbled upon your past history, your intentions, and your supposedly cruel fate. The turn of events generated an emotional turmoil I cannot deny, even if it means forsaking the duty of my job, and the nature of outcome.

Smittenpoise, here lies your smitten persona. While only your emotionless face grants me a glimpse of what lies beyond the black velvet robes, I will not give up on the pursuit for truth. I will seek out and accomplish what you set out to achieve, with every bit of my unchanged soul. Your secret is safe with me. Free me from the regrets of the Undercat.

With my pink unfingered hand, I place a withered rose outside the boundaries of your grave. The absence of leaves on the stalk of wrinkled petals represents my personal desire to accomplish what you lost. With little droplets streaming forth from my bubbly, round eyes, I bid you farewell, as my feet dances off to the melancholic tune of my lullaby.

Rest in peace, Smittenpoise.