I don’t tolerate the cold. Dressed in layers, I huddle under the comforter, blanket, fleece throw, and sheets. The cat nudges till I lift the covers and she snuggles in next to me. The warmth of her body is a relief, as my warmth must be to her. She wraps herself around my right arm. Then the problem starts. I start to worry she will suffocate. So many layers on top of her, and then there’s my breath, all that carbon dioxide with every exhale. I try to remember if carbon dioxide is necessary for life or a threat. Carbon monoxide will kill you; we don’t exhale that, do we? And dioxide, is it dangerous? I stick my head out from under the covers. The frigid air hits my nose. But at least I’m exhaling into the room, not into her lungs. Exhaling CO2. Does that make the other CO or is it CO1? Once I start thinking, how can I sleep? And there’s still the weight of the covers. I can’t sleep because I’m listening and feeling her vibrations, making sure she’s still breathing and alive, and when she sleeps and her breathing gets so shallow I can’t be sure it’s happening, I have to stir a little to see if she’ll react. So she’s alive, at least for now. The truth is, I hope with all my heart she’ll predecease me. What would she do without me? So chronic conditions and the inevitable process of aging be damned, I have to keep going. If I take care of myself, my doctor says I can live to be a hundred. No thank you! At 100 years of age, a person can still enjoy quality of life, he tells me, prescribing a raft of preventive pharmaceuticals – for cholesterol, bones, blood pressure and then the others to alleviate the concomitant side effects. Just because he writes the prescriptions, I don’t have to fill them. I have a patient, he tells me, just turned 103. His mind is sharp, his body is in great shape, he’s overall like a man many years younger. How can I sleep when I’ve got this conversation – actually, it was a monologue as I said nothing – running over and over through my head? Yes, he’s lonely. His friends have all died, or actually, I think maybe there’s one or two alive, but suffering from dementia. His sister died. His two sons have died. But he’s coping with that. His only concern is he’s almost gone through all his savings. Another month or two, and he can’t pay the rent. So, yes, he’s very aware of his situation and very focused these days on wondering what will become of him. The only words I wanted to say in return were Do you hear yourself? I don’t get lonely. I enjoyed lockdown, the solitude, the freedom from social obligations. My cat is a sweet companion. When I fart – and I fart more these days, maybe it’s part of aging? My farts don’t bother her. No smell is noxious to a cat, and certainly anything emanating from me has to be OK. Now my mind is rummaging again, as I try to think of a synonym for fart. Once my mind gets stuck on a word, it races. I don’t mean the verb – to pass gas, to break wind. Isn’t there a noun? A toot? There has to be a word, flatus? If I weren’t lying in bed with the cat wrapped around me I could look it up. Instead I try to remember if methane is a component of human farts. Methane from cows is poisoning the planet, or so I’ve read, so am I poisoning my cat? She is such a loving creature. In her little feline brain, I can do no wrong, so I stay awake and guard her sleep, though she has no idea what it costs me. My savings – barring unforeseen emergencies – should last another ten years. That should pretty much take her to the end of her cat life. Ten years from now, if she’s still with me, and I’m still here, before I depart, I’ll pull the covers over us both and breathe out. I’ll exhale all the carbon dioxide in my system. She’ll be with me, snuggled in my arms, while we exhale, inhale, exhale for just as long as it takes.

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Diane Lefer’s most recent novels, Out of Place and Confessions of a Carnivore, were both published by Fomite and set during Bush’s War on Terror. She is the author of three story collections, including California Transit (Mary McCarthy Prize). Diane lives in Los Angeles with a cat and without a car and where her only phone is a landline.