The Byronic Side
It was now two weeks until Christmas and Library Cat was feeling much better. Students were merrily singing carols, and wearing pleasingly coloured pieces of red tinsel that glittered and were most enjoyable to chase. The number of titbits also increased – turkey suddenly became plentiful as well as salmon and cream… so much cream! By and large, the Humans had given up their martyrish desire to keep their houses unnecessarily cold, and buildings were slowly becoming warmer, despite some of the more wealthy households remaining stubbornly and inexplicably Baltic.
The loneliness he had felt when he’d seen the Black Dog had instilled a new craving in him. He wanted a mate. A partner. Another thinking cat with whom he could share his thoughts and nuzzle against on a cold night. Puddle Cat was the one, of course. But then Puddle Cat was frustratingly enigmatic. Library Cat had spent so many hours hoping he’d see Puddle Cat again, but on the odd occasion that he did, her beautiful image would ripple into nothingness every time he attempted to drop a mouse or rat or other token of affection into her pretty mouth. It was futile.
This particular day saw Library Cat sitting on the dreich grass behind the chaplaincy. Many people seeing him might have assumed he was sitting there because the library was closed, or because the chaplaincy was being vacuumed.
They would’ve been wrong.
You see, Library Cat was in fact sitting out in the grey drizzle because it was time to up his game. It was 17th December (or, as we all know, the 192nd anniversary since the publication of Don Juan’s ‘Canto XII’), and Library Cat was attempting to channel Byron in the hope of attracting a mate. He was sure the other thinking cats in the area would get the reference. If not, they weren’t worth it.
Apparently, mused Library Cat, according to the Romantic poets, this setting of bone-numbing dampness and colour-sucking drizzle imbues me with an enigmatic quality. I am a sort of Heathcliff of cats. Thus, according to the Romantic Human masters, I will become immediately irresistible. It’s a double-edged sword. I’ll either receive cat love, or the Humans will think me irresistibly Romantic and lavish me with tickles.
And so Library Cat, hunched in the cold and sporting the frown of a true method actor, waited. He waited, and waited, and waited, ’neath the symbolically spindly tree. He waited so long he forgot it was 5.55 am when he first arrived. He moved closer to the symbolically spindly tree in an effort to seem more enigmatic. He shivered. Several Humans passed by and not one cat. The Humans didn’t even notice him. He shivered some more.
Am I waiting for affection, or waiting for Godot? he thought wryly to himself, temporally lifting his mood with the spark of his own Beckett-inspired wit.
Evening started to settle in, and things became silent. In the distance, he heard trains arriving at Haymarket, clicking over the tight, mirrored rails. Still no cats arrived. The odd Human raced past on a bike like a firing torpedo. Library Cat started to wonder whether there might be something else that was putting potential cats off.
Perhaps I smell strange?
Library Cat noticed how things this time of year began to smell very spicy and sugary and wondered whether she-cats were expecting him to smell the same. It seemed peculiar that they would, but then again his current strategy wasn’t offering much success either. He’d tried scent marking – around the tree, and in the house, and in the library, and on his turquoise chair – but the sorry fact was that the scent mark of a thinking cat simply doesn’t possess the same potency as that of an alley cat, and given thinking cats come with their own set of attractive credentials, he felt that he might as well fight the war on his terms and with his assets. “Out-think the fug”, as the other Towsers would put it.
Well something has to be done, fretted Library Cat, rising slowly and shaking the dew off his fur. Books alone evidently don’t cut it in the language of love. Byron was clearly a deluded cretin with some other secret trick up his sleeve that he chose not to reveal.
Poetry is a load of rubbish!
Recommended Reading
‘A Study of Reading Habits’ by Philip Larkin.
Food consumed
A bead of dew.
Mood
Alluring, voluptuous.
Discovery about Humans
They couldn’t see a decent feline re-enactment of a Beckett classic even if it were to come up and scratch them in the face.
Sneeze
Library Cat nosed his way in through the cat flap on the hunt for a festive scent that might make him seem more attractive. The kitchen was often the place from which these smells effused so he headed there, keeping a low profile for soon there was mischief to be done. With one big leap, he was up on the kitchen work surface. Carefully he limboed under the arch of the tap spout and sidled over the gas hob. A spatula fell to the floor with a clang.
“Caaaaat?!” yelled his owner, with suspicion, from the living room.
Library Cat remained quiet. In the corner of the counter was a grassy-looking plant whose thin green stems he began to devour voraciously. Promptly afterwards he felt sick. Retching, he deposited a small soggy fur ball in the corner next to the plant and the salt and pepper shakers.
That feels better, he thought somewhat refreshed. In the other corner, he spied what he was after. He minced delicately along the counter, treading accidently on the kettle button, sending it into a furious, spitting dry boil. Finally, he sat down next to the spice rack. He biffed it with his paw. Round and round it glided, showing a blurred compound of spice names that shimmered repeatedly past his vision like a phantasmagoria or a series of atoms in a scientist’s equation:
CUMIN – CINNAMON – PARSLEY – SAGE – CUMIN – CINNAMON – PARSLEY – SAGE – CUMIN – CINNAMON – PARSLEY – SAGE – CUMIN – CINNAMON – PARSLEY – SAGE
Lifting his paw, he sent the cinnamon jar flying off the merry-go-round and down to a crash on the floor.
“Caaaaaaaaaaaaat?!”
Jumping down he sniffed and rolled in the maroon powder, until his white patches were no longer white. It smelt wonderful. This would surely give him an advantage – that stand-out-from-the-crowd edge. For who could refuse a wonderful cinnamon-scented thinking cat? He felt quite lush.
Turning round at footsteps, he saw his owner at the doorway.
“What have you done now, you wee bugger?”
Knowing this might lead to incarceration, the water spray or dried food for a week, Library Cat ran, eventually coming to a rest on the chaplaincy steps outside. He felt good – ennui appeased, fur ball purged and smelling sweet as befitted the season and his quest for love. He was ready to face the world again.
But then something curious happened. Suddenly his nose, he gasped, and let off three massive cat sneezes: “Fffffffftt! Ffffftt! FFFFFFFFTT!”
Now I should make clear at this point, Human, that sneezing for cats is very different to sneezing for us Humans. When we sneeze, we wipe our noses and move on. We realise that certain things make us sneeze, like pepper, dust, spice and pollen. But when Library Cat sneezes, he doesn’t know what is happening. His world folds in on itself: he feels alarmed, possessed and out-of-control. To top it all, he feels scared.