Secrets.

We all have them.  Their sole purpose is to keep someone, or anyone, from knowing the truths that we have locked away in our head.  The reasons vary, but the goal is the always same.  Unfortunately, secrets of the mind are less like a book locked in a safe and more like a bubble being forced below the surface.  That bubble constantly fights to rise.  And like the laws of common physics, it usually wins.

The sane keep their secrets with the tools of silence and denial.  The insane, on the other hand, will alter reality if they have to.  But in most of our lives, truth is entrusted enough to first be the assumed.  Therefore when Yvonne L. was admitted into the asylum crying for her lost cat, we helped her look.  She said his name was Karma.

Due to the private nature of the asylum, a covert team was dispatched to Yvonne's neighborhood and discrete inquiries were made.  While her neighbors all conveyed concern as to where Yvonne might have disappeared to, no one recalled seeing her with a pet cat.  When a careful examination of her apartment yielded no cat food or litter box, the conclusion was quickly drawn that the feline was a figment of her imagination.

Given the fact that Yvonne named her imaginary cat "Karma," no great leap was needed to see that she was using this fictitious creature as a metaphor for her current condition.  Falling into a chronic depression had left her with a sense of loss for any of her actions.

Years of therapy failed to convince Yvonne that Karma the cat wasn't real.  She insisted that she didn't even know that "karma" was a real word.  Her cat already had that name when she adopted him.  Since Yvonne had no photograph of her beloved cat, she drew a small picture of him and carried with her everywhere.  Hours were spent stroking the gentle lines on the paper, with a gaze on her face that mirrored her passion for the small animal.

Yvonne passed away in the spring of 1987.  Like most patients at the asylum, she sadly lived much longer than she wanted to.  The entire staff sympathized with her and her "best friend" as she slipped in and out of consciousness during her final two weeks.  I personally stayed with her for much of that time, making sure her drawing remained well within in her view.  Then, the day before her last, I, along with one other staff member on duty, learned the unimaginable secret that Yvonne had kept buried deep in her guilt for all those years.  The bubble had finally surfaced, releasing the truth with a sudden burst.  Karma the cat had indeed been real.  His name was simply an irony.

The facts of what happened were gathered when Yvonne seemed to be slipping between the past and the present.  She would relive specific moments from long ago, then jump to the present with a rambling confession before slipping back into the past or unconsciousness.

Here's what we know.

Yvonne had been an assistant at a veterinary clinic years before she became the librarian that everyone else knew.  She was youthful and dedicated to helping the local pets and farm animals.  Well into her fourth year at the clinic, a young couple brought a small gray and white kitten to the facility.  Seems the little guy had failed to land directly on all four legs during a fall, resulting in a small limp.  The doctor told the nervous couple they had nothing to worry about, but that he would keep the kitten overnight for observation.  Yvonne noticed a small tag and collar on the kitten, which she had rarely seen on cats.  She picked him up and read the tag.  "Karma."

Karma was unlike any other cat Yvonne had ever experienced.  Instead struggling to free himself or going limp when being held, this cat would wrap his tiny arms around her neck and hold on tight, as if giving a delicate, fuzzy hug.  Yvonne was very moved by this.  When she put him down, he would immediately try to climb her and give her another hug.  This was particularly odd since she had not witnessed this ritual with the owners.  She stayed with the kitten through the night, locked in his soft embrace.  By morning, Yvonne came to a clear and critical decision - she and Karma were meant to be together.

The young couple arrived almost immediately after the doctor had walked through the door that morning.  He welcomed them and said he would promptly return with Karma.  Yvonne panicked.  Still holding Karma in the back room, she ran out the rear door before being seen.  She didn't stop until she was home.  After frantically locking Karma into her bedroom, she swiftly returned to her place of work, hoping no one had missed her.  By then chaos had erupted, with the young couple yelling at the doctor for losing their cat.  Yvonne knew they would start a neighborhood search for Karma, so quickly came up with a lie.  Karma, she told them, had died during the night.

Shocked, the young couple fell silent for several minutes.  Then they asked something that Yvonne had not considered.  The body.  They wanted Karma's remains.  All Yvonne could think to say at that moment was that it was gone.  The carcass had been disposed of.  Even the doctor seemed confused by this.  The shouting and demands continued for quite some time before the couple left with the promise of returning with the police and a lawyer.  How could a body be so important?  The doctor grabbed Yvonne by the elbows and pulled her face into his, demanding, without options, to bring him the body.

She cried with fear for the next several hours, wandering through the neighborhood, wondering what to do.  She returned home to Karma, who immediately climbed her chest and gave her a gentle hug.  She cried some more.  By afternoon, she felt trapped into a single choice.  Her sobs turned to wails.  She did what she had to do.

By evening, Yvonne had given the young couple Karma's body.

In the back of my journal for 1987, I still have Yvonne's delicate sketch.  I can only hope that somewhere out there, in the unknown, Yvonne and a little gray kitten named Karma have found a gentle, eternal embrace.