A sudden thirst struck Library Cat, and he sauntered off the kerb towards one of the puddles for a drink. All of a sudden, as he looked into the puddle, he became utterly spellbound.
Library Cat had never given much thought to the subject of love. Last Valentine’s Day he’d concluded, after some thought, that “The Valentine”… was a purely Human concept perfectly befitting that specie for whom copulation only occurred on 14th February each year, and who saw fit, on this day, to buy each other odd pre-copulation gifts such as candles that released poisonous fumes, and terrifyingly turgid red bags of air that floated around hallways making unearthly bangs when touched by a clawed paw.
And then it hit him. Love. It shot into focus like a humungous telescope, bringing into his vision the eternal, infinite colours of the universe. The stars in all their yellow brilliance. The soft blue swirls of Neptune. The deep, red, towering supernovas. And who was the cat that had caused such tectonic stirring? Who was the cat that had finally kindled love in our hero’s tiny, feline breast? PUDDLE CAT!
Puddle Cat was beautiful, with a shiny coat and long whiskers. Puddle Cat was stunning. Library Cat was in love. Suddenly the world around Library Cat seemed to dissolve; all but himself, Puddle Cat and a sprouting autumnal narcissus remained. He’d forgotten all about his drink of water.
He walked back the chaplaincy holding the image like a red laser dot, flickering and ungraspable. His heart beat hard. He felt delicious as the thought of Puddle Cat washed over him.
He pushed his way through the cat flap and into his bed, and there he stayed, kept awake by his own purring.
Recommended Reading
‘Sonnet 18’ by William Shakespeare.
Food consumed
Dissolved piece of mud.
Mood
Enraptured.
Discovery about Humans
They trivialise perfection.
On the Prowl
A week later, Library Cat awoke to the colour of orange. It was 1st October and autumn had well and truly descended. Browns and ambers mixed deeply together among the littered leaves, and the very whirrs and hums of the city seemed to braid beautifully into their papery shuffle along the pavement.
A cornucopia of delicateness, thought Library Cat, his two front paws on the edge of the windowsill with just his ears and eyes poking above into the square. How pleasing!
Things had gone quiet and Library Cat could only assume that the Humans had finally agreed on which set of “bloodsucking creatures” should make the new “laws” which governed the fate of day-old tuna.
Thank goodness for that, mused Library Cat, relieved that his choice to keep his views to himself could no longer be denunciated as apathetical. Still uppermost in his mind, however, was the beautiful image of Puddle Cat – the first she-cat to instantly win over his heart.
Oh Puddle Cat! Was the image of a cat ever more lovely and temperate? thought Library Cat, freely quoting Shakespeare because he’s out of copyright. Oh Puddle Cat! You were like my best side! The missing piece to my puzzle… Am I really to see you just the once? You mimicking my every move in reverence? Your coat rippling in the breeze?
Library Cat was so carried away in his own soppy cloud of love that he almost failed to hear the rustle in the hallway: a postcard had fallen just inside the cat flap. Jumping down, he weaved his way past his piles of books and out into the long, cold corridor, its floor glowing with little parallelograms of autumn sunlight.
He looked at the postcard on the mat. It was from his English cousin, Saaf Landan Tom:
Cuz –
Been finking about ya, mate. Hope ya well and that. Howz about I hit up your gaff in Edinbrah, and we go mousing one day? Also, I need to take you On The Prowl… Seriousssslee, mate, I can’t believe you’ve never been On The Prowl. The nights in Edinbrah are wicked, mate, just wicked. I’ll take you when I’m up – da alley scene up near you is bangin’ mate, I’m tellin’ ya’. Tons of byoo’tiful she-cats. We can cotch at yours, go to the Towsery, read sum naughty books, do some nip and head out on the town, yoo wiv me, yeah? YEAH!
Also I need to cotch wiv you coz I totally forgotten where I live. And this sofa I’m sleeping on under this bridge is bare itchy, mate. And the rats here are MASSIVE.
Cheers, cuz, you da cat.
Saaf Landan Tom was only half thinking cat. From his father’s side (whoever his father was), Saaf Landan Tom came from pure alley cat stock, whose lineage dated back to the Great Plague. For a pedigree thinking cat like Library Cat, his cousin’s uncouth behaviour could at times be a little bit hard to endure. Saaf Landan Tom had no style. No panache. No esprit de chat as Biblio Chat would say.
But Library Cat’s cockney cousin had his advantages. Catnip was always in plentiful supply when his cousin was present, and whenever Library Cat was thinking a little too much – his mind white hot and overloaded with knowledge – Saaf Landan Tom was the perfect cat to bring him back to earth.
Also Saaf Landan Tom never arrived empty pawed. Whether it was rat, vole, mouse or a how-on-earth-did-you-kill-that badger, Saaf Landan Tom always announced his visit with the most succulent and freshest killing one could imagine. It was hard for Library Cat not to soften against his cousin’s grating habits and unrelenting insistence for “fun” when he arrived with such delicious offerings, such potent catnip and such saucy suggestions for literature.
Hmmmmm, thought Library Cat, reading over his cousin’s postcard once again. As long as he doesn’t stay for weeks and besmirch my rug with fur balls, I will accept him. But going out On The Prowl? Never. I’m just not that kind of cat…
Library Cat thought back to the one and only other time he had gone On The Prowl. It had been an unmitigated disaster. He had been sitting in his turquoise chair one day, and a Human had approached and said, “Looking hot, Library Cat! Would you be my Valentine?”
From this comment, Library Cat had gleaned that the Human was trying to tell him it was time for love, and that he should drag himself out On The Prowl. And so he did. He’d eaten well, and licked his coat until it shined. He’d caught the finest rodents, as offerings. They should be so lucky, he’d thought, looking down at the clutch of maimed mice he’d amassed. Then, he’d retched up a fur ball (no cat wants to be gagging on a fur ball when he’s about to seal the deal with a beautiful she-cat), took a brief drink of water, gnawed his collar off and headed out the cat flap at 4 am, ready to join the hoard of other cats mewing their way down the alleys towards night-time pleasures.
But when he arrived at the spot, beneath a flickering sodium streetlight, Library Cat just couldn’t do it. He tried to get involved, but was invariably shunted to the side to watch other cats nuzzle each other’s noses and nip each other’s ears affectionately, which made his tail fat with jealousy. (This was because Library Cat knew all this nuzzling, and coat-preening, and mouse-giving was all a big preamble to… well… you-know-what. And frankly, Library Cat was terrible at you-know-what.) Library Cat had tried to ruin the mood by hissing from his sideline position, but it hadn’t worked. Chemistry is chemistry after all. Eventually he quietly gathered his mice-offerings up by their tails, walked over to another cat’s house and dumped them on his doorstep, before tiptoeing quietly out into the street pondering banal things like, I wonder why “alleys” are called “closes” in Scotland? and What on earth is a “Fire Hydrant”? and Why aren’t they bothered by the threat of stray dogs, and traffic, and catching worms, and lice and, and, and…