Cat's Eye

Content Warning: This section of the guide references bullying, abuse, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and illegal abortion.

Elaine thinks about her brother, Stephen, who once told her that time, like space, was a dimension through which it was possible to travel. She didn't understand what he meant at the time, but she now imagines time as a series of transparent layers piled upon each other with different memories coming to the surface.

Elaine, 13, tells her friend Cordelia that time is a dimension as they ride the streetcar to downtown Toronto. They make fun of the bodies and clothes of the older women on the streetcar.

The narrative skips to the present, where Elaine considers her own middle-aged body, which she considers and judges as she did those other women. She wonders where Cordelia is now and what she looks like, picturing her with sagging breasts and graying hair. She catches imagined glimpses of this Cordelia on every street corner. She imagines with satisfaction terrible things that might happen to Cordelia: a man attacking her in the street, her body lying unconscious in a hospital bed, or her trapped in an iron lung in a room with Elaine, who can both move and speak.