Fiction from Kim Magowan

Photo: Viktor Forgacs

The Last Faculty Meeting

The last full faculty meeting of the semester was held a mere two days after Commencement—two days since they had been sweating in their heavy regalia, thirsty and bored. The silver lining was that the meeting had been moved from in-person to Zoom. The rumor was the college president was already vacationing, and logging in from Hawaii. Jane poured white wine into a coffee mug and set up her laptop on her back deck. Her head had been hurting all day; maybe wine would help.

The college president welcomed them all. “We’ll keep this short. I know everyone is anxious to get on with their summers,” she said. Her Zoom background was one of those artificial ones, a still shot of the majestic college library.

The provost, Jane noted, also had a fake background, a peculiar, high-tech one that Jane finally recognized as the command deck of the Star Trek ship, Enterprise. This made Jane laugh, then wince—partly because laughing sent a new stab of pain through her head, and partly because her reflex was to send Stephen a chat message, challenging him to identify Nina Oyemi’s background.

Stephen was Jane’s ex-husband, and for twenty-two years had also been her colleague. Endless faculty meetings had been more painless, back when she and Stephen exchanged “shoot me now” messages. He’d sent her texts full of emoji representing whatever faculty member was currently pontificating (clowns, aliens, zombies, grenades, hand saws).

At that moment, a beautiful, silky calico cat walked gracefully up to Jane, leapt into her lap, and began to purr. Startled, Jane turned the cat’s head to face her. It had large, lynx-like ears; its coppery eyes blinked calmly.

Jane pulled her laptop towards her, then remembered two things. The second was that the provost had disabled the private chat function, because—Nina Oyemi had announced this at a prior faculty meeting—they were all acting like a bunch of middle-schoolers. No more side chats! she’d said, sternly. They needed to keep their cameras on, pay attention, and behave like professionals.

The cat purred.

Jane picked up her phone and texted Stephen. You won’t believe this, she typed.

This was not the first time in the past ten months that she had sent Stephen a text. It was like throwing a bottle into the ocean, or a coin into a fountain. But this time, she saw three dots, indicating someone was typing a message, and then:

What?

Jane stared, then typed. A cat is sitting in my lap. Well, not just any cat. It’s my old cat Maleficent.

Maleficent? Weird name. Like the witch?

Exactly! She has these enormous ears that my sister and I thought look like horns. Remember Maleficent’s bizarre headdress?

Vaguely.

Jane continued petting the cat. This is all too strange, she typed.

How so?

Well, for starters—I haven’t seen Maleficent since I was a child. She would be, let’s see… 48 years old. Which is how many cat years??? 48 X 7?

I don’t think cat years are the same as dog years. Cats live longer. They’re smaller; their hearts don’t give out as quickly. Stephen used the heart emoji in lieu of the word.

Even so—let’s say Maleficent is only 200 cat years old—how is this possible?

Stephen sent the “thinking” emoji, scratching his chin. Could this cat simply look very much like your old cat? Haven’t you seen those “separated at birth” photos? There are some truly uncanny likenesses out there, among folks who have no blood relation.

Jane turned the cat’s head again, then typed. Nope, she’s definitely Maleficent. She has the giant ears, the little black Hitler moustache. Plus, she has Maleficent’s collar. Skinny red collar with a metal tag shaped like a bone.

Why would you put a bone tag on a cat’s collar? That’s for a dog, no?

The cat’s fur was warm and silky. Jane’s laptop screen filled with the bald chairman of the faculty executive committee, clearing his throat in his gurgling way.

She typed, Stephen… am I dead?

Why would you ask that?

Well… I’m petting Maleficent. And you’re answering my texts.

Is this one of those Jane questions? Where you ask something, and then I get in trouble for answering?

OMG if you are referring to your telling me about Laura, that is hardly why you got in trouble! What a twisted version of reality!

Let’s not get sidetracked. Unless you want to be sidetracked? I’m not sure what you want here.

Am I dead?

What do you think?

Oh Jesus Christ, do not go Socratic on me!!! Jane paused. I feel the cat’s fur; I feel the phone.

There was no response. Jane recalled other times, in the past year, after Stephen’s funeral, when she had called Stephen’s phone to hear—it had continued to play for months—his phlegmy voice say, “Please leave a message.” His death had been so sudden, a massive heart attack in August. He’d been weeding his garden. Jane had still been his emergency contact, so she was the one they phoned. Colloquially, that “cardiac event” was called a widow maker, the doctor told Jane at the hospital. Death was nearly instantaneous; Stephen would have had no time to suffer.

Jane typed, Shouldn’t there be a tunnel? Shouldn’t I be seeing a white light? She sent Stephen a GIF of a white light.

Now, he replied. There’s a theory about that white light thing. During cardiac arrest, the dying person experiences a sudden surge of brain activity, which manifests as a white light. Not to discount, btw, the possibility of an afterlife. Just, that’s a theory I’ve heard.

My chest feels fine. But my head has been kicking my ass all day.

That’s a humorous mental image, a head kicking an ass. Is your head hurting now?

Nope, Jane typed. The chairman of the faculty executive committee was still droning on. At least I get to skip the meeting, Jane thought.

She looked up from her phone to her deck, dappled with sunlight. Three feet away, a hummingbird whirled drunkenly. Such beautiful, dumb birds: they were always flying through the open sliding glass doors into Jane’s kitchen and panicking. They beat their wings against her skylight, unable to locate the obvious exit.
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Kim Magowan lives in San Francisco and teaches in the English Department of Mills College at Northeastern University. She is the author of the short story collection Don’t Take This the Wrong Way, co-authored with Michelle Ross, forthcoming from EastOver Press; the short story collection How Far I’ve Come (2022), published by Gold Wake Press; the novel The Light Source (2019), published by 7.13 Books; and the short story collection Undoing (2018), which won the 2017 Moon City Press Fiction Award. Her fiction has been published in Colorado Review, The Gettysburg Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Wigleaf, and many other journals. Her stories have been selected for Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf’s Top 50. She is the Editor-in-Chief and Fiction Editor of Pithead Chapel.