by Horia Hulea
Chapter 14
Arthur is completely absorbed in a feverish search for something under the table of incantations.
His entire room is a mess of stuff—and, by stuff, I mean Stuff, not objects. Because objects are something concrete with defined proprieties that can be classified and put in neat separate groups where you can draw arrows and put relations between them. The stuff in his room looks as if a cataclysmic earthquake happened for days in a row and crushed and tossed things from one wall to another, followed by a tornado that scattered and threw everything everywhere (including the ceiling), followed by a flood that washed it and mixed it all in a blender as big as the room, after which it receded, leaving everything in a primordial state.
And in the ruins of that cataclysm, rummaging like some rodent digging a burrow, is Arthur the Alchemist.
Oh, you didn't know he is an alchemist? Now you do.
At thirty years of age, Arthur is truly the greatest alchemist of his time!
Probably because he is the only one.
But I digress.
Just look at him! He has to be a great man!
Why?
Because he is certain he followed everything described in the books he's read: The Lives of Geniuses and Ten Steps to Becoming a Visionary and every other cheap sensational material on the great men and their successful stories!
Geniuses dropped out of school to start history-turning changes; therefore, he dropped out of school!
Geniuses never had jobs because they had visions to pursue and create revolutions; therefore, he considered having a job to be beneath him.
Geniuses never bothered with simple things like cleaning and social interactions so all their time could be spend on building great ventures; therefore, he never, ever dedicated one single precious second to cleaning or social interactions.
That is why Arthur has to be a genius! He just ticked all of the ten steps on the visionary genius list.
What had started as a childhood game, playing a wizard and superhero, turned gradually into something of an idiotic escape from reality. All the other kids that used to play with him when he was little now have careers and families. But Arthur, Mommy's little treasure, who fancies himself a mystical master of occult arts, is still stuck in his little world.
It started innocently enough when he noticed that Mom wouldn't bother him if he acted busy:
"Mooom, can't you see I'm busy?" and his mom would let the dear little treasure do the important stuff he was doing.
"Mooom, you can't tell me you can't buy this! This is very, very important for me!" and mom would buy anything the little treasure cried for, so that it would end up sooner or later in the pile of discarded junk from the house basement.
"Mooom, you can't tell me what to do! I am bizaaayy!!" and mom would never criticize the little treasure on anything. Instead, she cleans the dreadful room and pays all his game subscriptions and washes and feeds the little genius for life.
And good old mom never notices that Arthur the Incapable, Arthur the Incompetent is busy all the time but never seems to finish anything—and not because he doesn't have time or money (because if he doesn't, his mom has both), but because anything that needed finishing was too hard.
And as he grew up from being a kid, all that stuff like projects and homework and labs and exams became harder and harder. Then later in life, all these grown-up things like finding a job, looking for a place to live, and taking care of himself were next to impossible!
That is why sleeping until the afternoon and eating what Mom makes every day is his only viable alternative. And after dropping out of school (in Arthur's world, it was the school that didn't deserve any more of his precious time wasted because he realized he was so much cooler than all the institutions that had nothing left to teach him), he started his spiritual adventures investigating all the religions from all the corners of the world.
But not the mainstream ones!
Oh, no!
Those were for the masses, for the sheepie consumers, while he, Arthur, Mom's smartest little boy, couldn't lower himself wasting time on those. So, his room ended up carpeted with posters written in the mystical, made-up languages of some sect from the thirteenth century. The floors were littered with piles and piles of the most obscure books from no-name authors that starved to death waiting for someone to buy their only printed edition. The walls were stacked with all the manuscripts written by people that never made a living from selling said manuscripts. All the special nut cases who completed their masterpieces in an asylum, all the discarded works of art from various self-proclaimed "artists" that dwelled in their parents' basements a century ago, every worthless piece of junk with no historic value ever printed in past history was sure to find its place in Arthur's room.
And because the piles and piles of useless crap books were not enough, the food scraps and dirty clothes filled the room, just to make the picture a holistic mess, together with the dead spiders that hanged themselves from witnessing the daily proof of Arthur's incompetence.
These intense studies of the scribblings of ancient "masters" took such a toll on poor Arthur, Mommy's sweetest boy, that he reached thirty years still living with his mother (the accurate description would be "making a living on his mother"), still a virgin (technically, he wouldn't admit to that, since he counts watching porn as sexual experiences), and with no prospects of ever having a girlfriend, a job, or a life. But that did not stop Arthur, petit cherie, from fancying himself as being extremely intelligent and awesome because Mom told him so every time since he began babbling the spoken language.
For someone who has perfected for decades his technique of being incapable at doing anything of relevance and significance, he is an expert in running away from any responsibilities or taking any.
That is why he discovered alchemy in the age of chemistry!
Finally, something that will keep him busy for life, while having nothing to show for it. Good thing his mom never seemed to get sick or die; otherwise, the neighbors would have found him starved to death on a pile of unwashed clothes.
And life went so well and everything went so smooth and dandy until three days ago.
That is when Mom brought that cursed kitty home.
That is when all hell broke loose.
Arthur, petit tresor, found with horror that he was no longer the center of attention. He was no longer the black hole into which the maternal affection was sucked with no escape.
The little stupid kitty was gobbling all of his Mommy's attention to the point where there was nothing left for him!
He realized that, for the first time in his life, he had to … actually make sandwiches for himself … actually open bottles of drink for himself … actually wipe his ass for himself.
His entire life has turned upside down in just three days.
And this isn't even the most annoying part!
The most annoying part is that he knew that he had seen that kitty somewhere! And it wasn't in the porn movies!
That is why Arthur, master of dabbling in the occult arts, is now furiously searching his entire collection of useless junk, mumbling and very, very annoyed. He has been tossing this salad of papers, socks, manuscripts, and molded scraps of food since early morning. But despair no more, because after backbreaking hours spent in this almost impossible quest, he manages to pull the smelliest manuscript from the deepest pile of underwear.
A manuscript that seems to have its own personal little swarm of flies flying around. A manuscript whose faded title he can still read: The Codex of the Holy Spirit Cat.
This is it!
The forgotten prophecy of Thomas McKendrick. With cat pictures included!
Look, look! He knew he had seen that cat somewhere! The same spot on the ear, the same spot on the paw, the big, big head, and the adorable, overflowing cuteness nobody can resist.
The cat is back—356 years counted and measured right down to the la
st day! A full 356 years have passed since its ascendence, and now it has returned!
For it was the Holy Spirit Cat, without a trace of a doubt, downstairs, licking his balls! Just as Thomas the Prophet predicted! Not the ball-licking—that, he did not predict—but the return of the
holiest of embodiments!
"The forgotten prophecy is happening!" Arthur cries, smitten by the realization that the very cat that had taken over his Mom's affection was the same cat that Thomas the Prophet had prophesied.
Everything was true! The cat messiah, the tooth fillings vision, the cow overlords, the movement started by Thomas three centuries ago, all … ALL were real!
He feels like the sky is falling on him over and over again, and he just wants to scream until his lungs exploded!
But first things first!
With rocket-like propulsion, Arthur the Finder of the Lost Prophecy storms down the stairs, tripping and crashing and almost breaking his neck (though we are not that lucky).
"Moooom! MOOOOOM!!!"
Arthur the Seeker is so high on his revelation that he's almost flying sideways across the living room, feet barely touching the ground.
"MOOAAAAAM!!!!!!"
He is dying to rub it in her face!
Where is that pesky Mom when you needed her?
Oh, great! She's gone shopping for food!
When it comes to nosing around and checking if he cleaned up his room and catching him wanking, she is there! But when he needs her to show how stupid she is, she's gone!
But the cat is here!
Oh, yes!
Let's see how you will cough up all those shiny prophecies now, mister Holy Spirit Cat!
Daddy needs his lottery numbers!
