《Tales from the Afterworld - short stories collection》Story 021 - MARBLE CAT (mystery)

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MARBLE CAT

There was a fountain in the old park surrounded by a crowd of beautiful marble statues of humans and animals. Linn York’s favourite among them was a big marble cat. The forgotten master created it with so much love and care it looked soft and fluffy despite being a stone. The cat statue, just like the other statues around, had coloured eyes, in its case emerald green, with black vertical pupils.

It was a very special cat indeed!

It seemed both strange and exciting to Lynn York that the marble cat had been there long before her birth and that even her great grandfather couldn’t remember who built the fountain and put all the statues in the park. There were statues of warriors armed to the teeth and of pretty girls in elvish dresses. There was a statue of a huntress holding a bow, ready to shoot; a statue of a little boy who looked scared and lost… All they were wonderfully, masterfully crafted by the same hand. But the cat, the cat stood in the very centre of the marble crowd like a true ruler of the motionless world.

At first, Lynn went to the park only on weekends when she was free to stay outdoors until dark without anyone missing her. She could do whatever she wanted: play with other kids, build sandcastles or tree forts, fly a kite or ride a bike, but, being a weird kid, she chose to come here and tell stories to the marble cat instead. The cat was a great company because he did listen to the girl, unlike people who either didn’t have time for silly stories or were just mean to her in a way tired adults often are.

Soon, Lynn started coming to the park more often, staying longer and longer each time, becoming more and more estranged from the loud, laughing, cursing, pushy “real world”.

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One evening she decided that she didn’t want to go home at all and… stayed in the park. Her family hadn’t slept a minute that night. Angry, cursing, and terribly worried, of course, they searched for Lynn everywhere. Soon, all the neighbourhood joined them in their search. Finally, the crowd of noisy, annoyed people entered the park.

The park greeted them with its special atmosphere of eternal peace and quiet that made even the loudest people hush up and calm down.

They passed by the marble statues, approached the fountain, and noticed that somebody had put a new statue there, a statue of little Lynn York. The nameless master picked the moment when she had been telling her favourite listener, the marble cat, something especially funny. The girl’s lively posture and excited face were softly etched in marble forever. The statue’s eyes were bright green.

The people had stopped there for a while, enchanted by the marvel they saw, then came to their senses and continued their search for the missing child.

Needless to say, they had never found her.

(August 7, 2003)

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