Cat People
Katharina Clark
On nights when the frequencies from my phone aren’t enough to tune out the way nostalgia drones from the vacuum in the hall, I watch paralyzed while a woman passes through my locked bedroom door. She tries to hug me, and in the morning, I wonder who else would find this so terrifying.
I moved into a place of my own, so she comes over to play house: we bake a pie, she waters the plants, I twist myself into something other than an embodiment of her regret.
I used to perform backflips for that heart-on-a-string she’d dangle in front of me. Maybe it offered her the entertainment the life of a housewife couldn’t… but what I know for sure is she’s the reason I hate dogs. How they slobber and shed, stumble into your path, and stay loyal to owners who keep them tied up in the snow.
Katharina Clark is originally from Princeton, New Jersey, and graduated from Rutgers in May 2024 with a bachelor’s in Cognitive Science and Psychology. She will complete a master’s in Brain Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, starting fall of 2024. She hopes to eventually live in a camper van and visit various national parks when she’s not working in the hospital.