Then a new thought occurred to him. What if my father were enacting a kind of subversion to put me off the scent of something exciting? A scent such as… say… books, or MICE? Mice live in bunkers after all.
Library Cat recognised his thought development as highly stupid and illogical. His relationship with his father had been strange at times but he never really thought him capable of hoodwinking him away from rodents in the manner that was now occurring to him. But the thought of mice had entered his head. And when the thought of mice enter a thinking cat’s head, they scurry around in there until their presence is so ubiquitous that the cat in question must seek out a mouse to appease the craving.
And so it was that Library Cat, filled with the image of large, tasty mice, ventured from his sunny, concrete throne beside the library on that late October day, and headed to the enigmatic Hugh Robson Essay Bunker. Down the stairs he went.
All at once a sight of terror met his eyes. Humans typing. Constantly typing! Typing and shuffling notes in a pallid hot void of whirring machines. But worst of all were the mice! There were mice everywhere, but they were strange robotic mice with long, genetically modified tails and no eyes. Each one seemed stunned into enacting the Humans’ dastardly deeds, only emitting an eerie “click” as they were dragged across the desks. To hungry Library Cat, they were a parody of temptation.
Get me out, NOW! thought Library Cat, and with that he turned and galloped back up the stairs, crossed the square and resumed his concrete throne.
But the thought stayed with him – the Humans, their robotic rodents complicit and eyeless. Library Cat wanted to shut out what he’d seen, and all its Camus-esque existential hideousness.
Well, at least I now know, thought Library Cat, calming down. But I think I need a normal mouse to get over this. Mmm, normal mice… Normal tasty mice…
Library Cat left his concrete plinth and began to stalk the dirty perimeters of the library, keeping his head low and his breathing soft, hoping for a tasty snack.
There! Just in the corner of the library and George Square Lecture Theatre, he spied what he was looking for: a turgid, naïve field mouse snaffling around for crumbs. Library Cat’s eyes widened. He tiptoed stealthily forward… one paw down… then the other… and…
“Library Cat, Library Cat! Are your thoughts academically citable?”
From behind him there bellowed the stricken voice of a nervous student.
Obviously they are, I’m Library Cat, thought Library Cat, turning his head back to face the student – a girl smoking and wearing a pashmina scarf – in anger.
“Ya, OK, but which referencing system should I use to cite your thoughts, Library Cat?”
MLA, thought Library Cat.
“Why?”
Because the letter L reminds me of the curvature of a mouse’s tail when fleeing in abject fear from my pernicious paw. It stirs me. Now do you mind? I was trying to hunt…
“Thank you, Library Cat, you’ve helped me a lot!”
Honestly, thought Library Cat exasperated. He turned back just in time to see the mouse’s backside disappear down a tiny hole in the concrete behind the library.
And yet another mouse I’ll never see again… fumed Library Cat, his ears twisted back in fury.
Recommended Reading
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.
Food consumed
(Almost) one mouse.
Mood
Frustrated and cheated.
Discovery about Humans
They are self-absorbed when stressed and should practise feline-inspired mindfulness.
The Arrival of Biblio Chat
Library Cat watched in horror.
A few yards off, walking imperiously over the cobbles, was his French cousin Biblio Chat. Unlike last year, when Biblio Chat arrived in Edinburgh having given up France for Lent, this year he was on the hunt for a particular book, entitled Mice and Mousing: Towards a Camusian Phenomenology of the Hunt.
It was difficult to describe the level of hostility Library Cat harboured towards his French cousin. Biblio Chat’s jaunty air, his frilly red collar, his late-night Refléxions de Sartre (whatever they were) and his showy rejection of Whiskas wet food all stirred a strange rage in him which he could neither fully understand nor control. He was, in deportment and character, the complete antithesis of Saaf Landan Tom.
Honestly, he should take a look at himself, seethed Library Cat as his cousin trotted, high headed, towards him past the David Hume Tower, ignoring the inevitable attention he garnered among those Human students around him by keeping his eyes semi-closed and his head held high as if he might be bathing in a bright ray of sun, while maintaining his trademark Cheshire Cat smile. He didn’t so much walk as glide and there was something so ethereally learned about him which made Library Cat jealous. Everything about him was preened and shimmering with self-aware Frenchness.
Needless to say, Biblio Chat was spawned from a long line of thoroughbred thinking cats, apparently dating back to the time of the French Revolution (though Library Cat suspected there might’ve been a bit of alley cat thrown in along the way – an addition that would annoyingly only add to his Gallic charm). It was around this time that his line began a long, deep-rooted alliance with Scotland profiting greatly from the former’s academic advances during the Scottish Enlightenment, and gravitating towards their warm public hostelries and rat-infested fourteen-storey tenements. Moreover, Scotland at that time offered refuge for many French thinking cats. When a bloody class war raged forcing the more succulent rodents to flee from the immutable sound of the slicing guillotine, Scotland and its new civilised society of sedentary Adam Smiths, David Humes, William Robertsons, Henry Playfairs and Adam Fergusons offered a welcome oasis for the French thinking cat. Biblio Chat’s great grandfather (x 104) had been such a cat, and had stowed away on one of the many claret vessels shuttling between Scotland and France at that time. He had ended up being David Hume’s cat, and Biblio Chat’s line had never forgotten it.
“Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness”, Biblio Chat had often postulated, though Library Cat secretly knew that this was a quote of Hume himself, and thus made his cousin a sleekit, devious plagiarist.
But there was one matter that was to forever divide the cousins above all others, no matter how many small periods of détente might thaw their tail-widening hostility towards each other when discussing philosophy and literature, and that was food. Mousing with Biblio Chat was an excruciatingly laborious affair. If there was one thing Library Cat couldn’t abide it was Biblio Chat’s indulgent talk about the experiential qualities of eating and hunting: mouse tones, mouse textures, mouse succulence… mouse tenderness, maturité, acidité, slainité and, most loathed of all, Le Crunch Facteur. You and your Crunch Factor, thought Library Cat. Just EAT the damn mouse!