“There is something I want to tell you, Harmon,” said Morgana with clinical tact bordering on inaudible timidity. Her voice was broken, whispered, invisible streaks of thinness lined her vocal chords, imparting a soft and liquid quality that underlined her latent femininity. Morgana was now fifty years of age and had never married. In fact she had always kept herself emotionally in check, preferring to rein in any occasional errant impulses. So, she had remained a spinster with only a handful of select friends. There was something average about her: sallow complexion, medium height, large expressive gray eyes perfectly matched with her undyed silvery gray hair. For her age, her skin was beautifully intact and dewy, with hardly an ephemeral trace of crow’s feet or wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. She seemed perpetually youthful, and dressed tastefully, too, emphasizing an innate elegance and decency. Yet, some would call her outfits a trifle severe if not dowdy, totally out of sync with her muted looks. She was by all accounts still an attractive woman, proudly and deliberately having ‘saved’ herself all these years for an indeterminate and hope-filled future.
“Harmon,” she continued, “I want you to know that just befriending you has made me the happiest woman in the world. It is enough for me just to have known you.” She noticed a reddish flush blooming on her companion’s cheeks. “You have opened my life into one full of light and optimism.” She fell silent, lulled by a faint plashing of water in the background. Harmon, she repeated to herself. Harmon. Morgana. Such a euphonious confluence of alliteration. The M’s and the R’s—blending so beautifully, like one long, comforting purring trill. “You know your friendship has kept me going all these years. You are all I have to fall back on. And even though we’ve hardly met in person over the years, it was enough for me to know that somewhere, as I looked up at the vast starlit sky every evening, you were thinking of me even occasionally.” She let her gaze fall on his deep golden eyes. “You’re the only one who truly understands me. You have made me so happy.”
They sat quietly on a circular wooden bench all alone in the conservatory exhibition hall of the botanical garden. The gates would be closing soon, and the guard had already approached them. Through the glass-encased structure, the twilit sun was filling the empty room, illuminating the thicket of tropical ferns, and highlighting the varicolored leaves of Maranta and Calathea plants. Behind them, a sandpiper raced across the tiled floor, dipped into a shallow lotus pool and nestled itself within a dense bamboo grove. All was hushed and peaceful.
Harmon was still very young-looking in his late forties. He was tall and lanky with a ruddy complexion, and his ginger blonde eyelashes and eyebrows imparted a certain sagacity and fluidity to his appearance. A few stray orange hairs were dotting his brown tweed woolen jacket. Since they first met decades ago in the neighborhood music school, Harmon had gone on to become a competent flutist and was now actively performing with various wind ensembles. It was a chance encounter to serendipitously meet at the garden’s exhibition hall that morning while Harmon was rehearsing for an upcoming recital. He reached for her hand, and unlike previous occasions when he avoided any sustained physical contact with her, allowed himself the unique liberty of embracing it firmly in his own slender fingers.
Morgana arched her shoulders closer. She smelled a faint trace of something pleasantly minty mingled with a vaguely savory aroma, fish, perhaps. “Harmon,” she whispered, “this time I won’t relent. We’ve played far too many games with no resolution in the past. It has got to stop. We have nothing more to withhold from each other. Our future is now.” There was a faint quiver of hesitation in her voice. “It’s now. We have nothing left to save anymore. Can we just begin to—you know—to live a little?” She let her clammy hand respond to his vague squeeze. “I know how we both feel about this. I only regret that we let ourselves over-intellectualize everything. Tell me, Harmon, is it too late?”
“It’s never too late,” he replied laconically. “Must I always reassure you?” Morgana found herself moving closer, emboldened by his assuasive manner. Five minutes, the guard announced from his nearby post. “Here, take a look,” Harmon said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dog-eared paperback book.
“Oh, Rilke! I love his poetry—”
“No, no,” he said digging out his wallet. “This. She’s the love of my life.” He eagerly handed her a well-worn photograph. “That’s my Beulah. Best darn lady in the whole world—my soul mate and life companion, too.”
Morgana studied the image with fascination. Yes, the resemblances were obvious: the bright amber eyes, ginger-colored hair, aesthetically delicate limbs. “She’s stunning, rare coloration—so beautiful. Just like you!” she said with unreserved enthusiasm. “What are you planning to do?”
“I’m going to marry her!” Harmon exclaimed.
“But—”
“It’s just as you said, my dear, dear, beloved friend. We’ve been overthinking this for far too long. You know how I feel, I know how you feel. The time is now. There is nothing left to stop us—”
“Isn’t this unlawful? Can you really do something like this, I mean—marry your…your own cat?”
“I checked with all the authorities. It’s not actually prohibited and there are no legal precedents. The rules are rather vague about this, but still, no, it can be done,” he grinned exultantly. “Beulah will become my wife. And, Morgana, please promise me you will be the maid of honor.”
“You know how I feel about this, Harmon,” she replied, stunned by the revelation.
The guard approached them and escorted them out the gate. “Good night, Morgana,” Harmon said bowing low and squeezing her hand one last time.
“Good night, Harmon.”
In the waning gloam of evening, Morgana walked the few short city blocks to her brownstone and alighted the steps to her flat with mounting excitement. The familiar sharp, pungent smells seeping through the corridor filled her nostrils with overwhelming comfort and security. She felt her heart skip a beat as she unlocked the door and switched on the light, illuminating a pair of steel-colored eyes. “Banjo! My true love—apple of my eye!” she cried scooping up her muscular gray tomcat and nuzzling herself in his silvery fur, breathing in the herbaceous scent of catnip interlaced with stale urine. “R-r-r-r—R-r-r-r!” she cooed, mimicking the animal’s enthusiastic purring. “Banjo! My handsome hunk, it’s all good. We’ll make it work. It’s a new world for you and me. It’s going to be alright from now on.”
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