But to Library Cat, going missing always seemed like the coward’s way out somehow – effective in garnering contrition among Humans, but never really resolving any issues. It’d be a short-term solution. He’d still be a cat on the run…
How can I pay up? I don’t have any money! A bird perhaps?
Library Cat had attempted to offer his thanks by delivering a bird to the library staff once, but the act of generosity had dramatically backfired. Hearing the shrieks of disgust as he placed the bird at the feet of one particular librarian as she enjoyed a sandwich on her break, Library Cat assumed that the bird was not satisfactory to her taste. Consequently he went back out on the hunt the next night and caught an even bigger bird as well as a rat. This cannot fail to delight, he’d thought, but the response the next day was even worse.
So I cannot get a bird. Umm… ummm… ummm…
Library Cat found himself pacing up and down on the spot. A lion locked in the cage of his own anxiety. Despite his books being overdue now for several years, and despite having never once been reprimanded or called to account over his crime, Library Cat nevertheless felt utterly sure that at this very moment, he was being watched by scores of surveillance computers, tracking his every move from space, each one poised to intervene at a moment’s notice sending a gaggle of baying Humans looking for him. All this time he’d been at peace when he should’ve been fraught with worry! All this time he’s been holding the gaze of myriad CCTV cameras, all latched onto him, swivelling sinisterly on their necks like a flock of malevolent barn owls. There were probably a host of computers all packed high with details of his book theft. By night, he was an infrared blob seen from above, a glowing tumour darting under bushes on the Meadows and George Square, seen even despite the thick, luminous alveoli that made up Edinburgh’s patchwork of streets and cul-de-sacs when viewed from the night sky.
Purring. Surely I can just purr. Purring solves everything. I shall purr all debts clean. It’s scientifically proven to have a manipulative effect upon Humans.
With a game plan, Library Cat felt a little better. Convinced that ostracism from the library loomed ever closer, he took a deep breath and walked over to the library, ducked under the glass doors, and marched high of head and straight of tail over to the Help Desk counter.
“Evenin’ Library Cat.”
“Purr purr purr purr.”
“Okay, Okay, I’ll get ye some bacon… jus’ wait there…”
Job’s a good’un, thought Library Cat, this seems to be going well.
As he waited for the librarian to return with the promised bacon, the same student he’d seen running earlier with the books arrived at the counter next to him. He watched as he unloaded the ungainly stack of monographs on the desk in front while the librarian scanned them one by one. When the librarian reached the final book, she looked interrogatingly back at her computer screen.
“Honestly, that’s, like all the books I have? I don’t, like, have any more?”
“According to our records,” the librarian said weightily, “we’re still due back The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche…”
A cold sweat ran through Library Cat down to his paws.
“No, I swear I returned that years ago, I swear.”
“Hmmm.”
Waaaaait a minute, thought Library Cat suddenly, a relief starting to tingle across his fur like a warm duvet. The fine isn’t mine at all. The fine belongs to the Human that the library THINKS has the books.
Library Cat looked back at the student Human. His head was bowed in embarrassment, and the palms of his hands were ever-so-slightly sweaty.
Is this fair? Library Cat wondered to himself, with a sudden twinge of guilt. Is it fair that this man is being punished in my place? Is it fair that I roam a free cat, and this Human goes to judgement in my stead?
Suddenly the librarian turned towards Library Cat, her spectacles balanced at the end of a pointed, unyielding nose. Their eyes met, but that was enough. Library Cat could take no more. The pressure was too much. He took to his heels and galloped out of the library, and towards the Meadows park, his guilt two feet behind him at all times like an autumn wasp, just as the first librarian re-entered smiling with steaming hot crispy bacon.
Recommended Reading
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.
Food consumed
Woodlice, catnip.
Mood
Guilty, fearful.
Discovery about Humans
Their rules take the pleasure out of things.
Missing
Library Cat ran and ran in the pouring rain. His paws started to feel numb and cold as he galloped through watery clods of mud on the Meadows. As he ran, he looked over his shoulder at intervals towards the library. The mirage of its grey, square form bounced up and down through the drizzle with the motion of his run, getting further and further away by the second. To his left was the great hill of Arthur’s Seat, shimmering uncannily in the fog as if superimposed there by a lazy special effects editor. He felt himself panting like a dog. Without stopping he darted across a main road. A car braked just in time. Had he been any slower, or had his coat possessed a little more black than light-reflecting white, or had he not stared in the direction of the car with eyes not quite as vibrant and neon green, things would almost certainly have turned out differently. Eventually he slowed his pace, his front legs beginning to buckle. Calming down, he headed up a small alley, called “Meadow Place Lane”. Torrents of water poured out of gutters as a wind howled all around. Everywhere broken umbrellas lay in bins bent and twisted like electrocuted daddy longlegs. The air smelt dank with the fresh smell of moss and earth, which wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Shortly he found himself in a square. A large tree stood in the centre of it, bejewelled with white Christmas lights. Behind it stood a shop called Scotmid.
I’ve heard talk of this fabled place, thought Library Cat gazing up at the large sign. He sauntered over and sat just shy of the threshold, feeling pleasant wafts of warm air slip out during the moments that Humans entered and left through an automatic door. He thought about the journey he’d just made in an effort to keep alive its various details for the return trip.
There was the library, the big park, the car, and then the… what came next?
But the harder he tried to recall the details, the faster they seemed to recede back from view, like a knowing mouse in its hole when it gets the whiff of hungry cat stalking slowly close by the other side.
“Hello, cat, you look lost.”
Library Cat looked up. Above him was a bearded, gangly Human, quite possibly a student, carrying a large square box, from which he extracted and chewed large Trivial Pursuit segments of some doughy food. It smelt wonderfully of anchovies and tuna. Library Cat rubbed his side against the student, purring loudly, and was duly rewarded for his affection with a morsel of the stodgy anchovy goodness which dropped to his feet. It was the most delicious thing Library Cat had ever tasted. The Human started to move away.