“Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude”, he said lazily.
Indeed? thought Library Cat.
“Hahaha Duuuude”, the boy repeated again between laughs. “Duuude, how’d you get in, pussy cat?”
The Human’s voice sounded strange – sort of slowed-down, like a cat’s when initiating a fight. On the floor were many scraps of paper with countless bits of writing on them scrawled messily in an incredibly inelegant hand. Library Cat gazed closely at one of them:
1… group }
2…. Ireland is an island!!!!!!
Library Cat paused. The Human is clearly a moron, he thought turning to leave. And charming as it is, this place is incredibly cold. It is no place for me to make my new life. They have books, I grant them, but their ways are too bizarre for me. This is their “down time” and yet they have found very odd ways of relaxing. I wonder if most Humans descend into madness behind closed doors?
As Library Cat moved discreetly towards the stairs, something else struck him about the way in which the student Humans live. Up until now, he hadn’t noticed the plethora of notes pinned up everywhere on various walls. Beneath the clothes horse in the hall, for instance, was one that said the following:
ATTENTION FLATMATES:
Throwing my stuff on the floor when it is not yet dry is NOT OKAY!!!
Wait til it’s dry or use the other rack.
Upon the door of the bedroom he’d just left was another note, much longer, written on a torn piece of paper:
Lawrence: Last night we came home to find a window open, and the washing up still not done. If you look at the rota, you’ll notice that you have not done chores for the past two months. There’s mould in the bathroom, OPEN THE WINDOW AFTER YOU SHOWER. Also you still owe us £55 for the new washing machine that YOU broke by trying to wash jeans with coins in the pockets.
Oh and don’t leave bowls in the kitchen unwashed.
Last night I saw two mice!
Thanks.
That’s it I’m staying! thought Library Cat impulsively upon learning that mice inhabited the flat in plentiful numbers.
Then a new thought occurred to him. Why do Humans over-communicate when it comes to nonsense and under-communicate when it comes to serious things? And why do they use their voices freely when it comes to nonsense, but resort to the pen and paper when it comes to reasoning? He looked over the two angry notes… He noticed how one was signed by “Tiff” and seemed angry but also quite warm, whereas the longer one wasn’t signed by anyone and referred to “us” instead of “me”. This seemed to give the vague impression that it spoke for, or was trying to look like it spoke for, the feelings of an entire group. Consequently, it possessed a certain heavy-handed gravitas, and a warmongering feel. A rhetorical flexing of the muscles. It gave the impression that the “war-on-household-chores” was not equally weighted on each side, but instead much more powerfully weighted on the side of the “us”, and thus aimed to intimidate Lawrence into action by suggesting he might alienate himself even further in this barren, cold, lonely, draughty upstairs part of the flat lest he fail to respond appropriately.
Yet downstairs it was all babble and fun, and the chatter stood as irrefutable proof that any one of the downstairs students could just as easily have come upstairs and told these things to Lawrence face-to-face, but chose not to because the anonymity, and reason, and rhetorical power of a good note nails the point home further, and is served with a bonus of a side order of ostracism. Suddenly Library Cat felt lonely, as if Lawrence’s peculiar isolation up here was seeping out through the bottom of his door and across the landing and into Library Cat’s skin like an airborne disease. He felt sorry for having thought him a “moron”. I bet he’s colder up here as well, considered Library Cat beginning to shiver himself. Trotting down the stairs, he tried to think about Puddle Cat to cheer himself up, but her beautiful image was lost amid the clamour and cold. He went towards the front door, looked up at the lock and mewed until someone came to his aid.
“The cat wants to go out…”
“No, no, don’t let him go out! Is he OK? He might get lost. Guys I think we should call Animal Protection. What if he gets hit by a car?”
Look, I’d rather just go, thought Library Cat, feeling suspicious at the Human’s sudden fit of righteousness.
“I’ll take him downstairs.”
Library Cat felt himself being scooped up, and bounced down the great echoing stairwell of the tenement, feeling more relieved with each descending storey until he was by the front door.
“Bye bye, puss, take care!” said the student disingenuously, closing the door behind him and leaving Library Cat alone and cold once again.
Recommended Reading
The House with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown.
Food consumed
Anchovy pizza.
Mood
Curious, becoming lonely.
Discovery about Humans
Humans can be alienating and cowardly when it comes to speaking their mind.
The Black Dog
And then some days, everything is strange.
Just over a week had passed since Library Cat’s attempt to go missing. His old home returned to him in a sort of embrace with each vase and box of books seeming to apologise for having stood by silent during his untimely exodus. Nothing was said about the library books; they stood in his bedroom stacked up just as they usually did. With each afternoon that passed a heavy, grey rain lashed the windowpanes like a malevolent ghost, harder and harder as winter sunk its jaw deeper and deeper. Ginger-coloured leaves started to blacken and rot. People stopped going outside. Cats stayed in the warm.
And yet this particular day saw Library Cat on a long walk. Something was scurrying in his mind, around and around day and night, keeping him awake. A walk was always an attempt to purge such cog-spinning moods.
They always seemed to help. They always seemed to ease things…
At this hour – 4 am – the drizzle had given way to a velvety, clear night. The moon hung freshly in the sky above, decorated with countless stars that flickered like lighthouses across a misty, calm sea. On the fuggy Cowgate, the moon’s whiteness illuminated the backs of mice and rats as they scurried behind bins and down drains.
And yet Library Cat hardly noticed them.
As he climbed Borthwick’s Close towards the Royal Mile, a particularly foolhardy rat scuttled right across his paws. Yet Library Cat hardly winced.
As the clock of St Giles chimed the hour of 4.15 am, our little black and white cat was struck with a curious feeling. It washed right over him with the same speed it takes light to travel two inches, and in its vast soundless wake, a deep and profound tiredness seemed to spread through his body and sink down into his every limb. Somewhere, deep within the plumbing of his brain, a plug had been pulled. The elixir that swirled down the plughole, sparkling and unstoppable like the sand of an egg timer, was neither the iridescent manna of happiness, nor indeed the red, clotting molasses of fear or anger or jealousy.