Library Cat

by Alex Howard

  A little while later, he slipped away from the Human’s touch and into the library.

  Sleep washed over him before his head even hit his turquoise chair.

  Library Cat was still in his chair. It was difficult to say how long. The Black Dog had returned to him in a few sifting dreams but it hadn’t lunged at him, and for this Library Cat was a little relieved. His mood was a little better; he felt rested. The mysterious chamber in his brain had magically begun refilling with the magic elixir of wellbeing. He wasn’t fully restored, but he was on the mend. He still felt scared, and irritable, and jealous and angry, but that didn’t matter quite so much, if the wellbeing elixir was refilling. With no wellbeing elixir these emotions were unpalatable and overwhelming like squash concentrate. When diluted in the elixir, however, they turned into little threads of colour that swept through the clear water of his mind making marvellous patterns in their myriad colours. They made up his character.

  I still don’t want to go outside again yet. I want to make sure the dog’s gone – away from George Square, away from Edinburgh. Oh… hello Humans…

  All of a sudden, a large clutch of students had gathered around Library Cat. Realising he’d spent a long time in the library and had not returned home for quite some time, they began to get worried for him. So much so, in fact, that they had even alerted something called a “Tabloid Newspaper” – a dubious compilation of Human writings – that he had run away.

  Well I’m here and I’m here to stay, thought Library Cat, craning his head forward like a plank, his eyes gummed shut, purring softly. He felt touched by the concern.

  Even more touching, though, was the sudden swathe of concerned correspondences Library Cat received from his cousins. Biblio Chat, for one, had risen out of his lofty contemplative remove and shown an uncharacteristic amount of concern for his Scottish cousin; said he should try thinking through these issues with another cat… un chat thérapeutique et professionnel… who may be able to help. Maybe the spectre of the Black Dog originated in kittenhood? Saaf Landan Tom’s advice was of a rather different vein: “My cat flap’s always open mate. If you need to cotch at mine, yeah? Ya wiv me, bruv, yeah? It’ll pass, mate, we’ll get you out on da alley again in no time.”

  Tom’s response was brave. Library Cat had, after all, lashed out at his cousin the month before, causing him to flee, even though Tom had never meant to harm by stealing his food, and even though he could have retaliated and made short work of his black and white cousin if he’d wished. And yet Tom, with a perturbed swish of his great bushy ginger tail, and a few licks of his bloody paw, had clearly put the matter behind him, and forgiven his cousin for swiping. That took a lot. That took being the bigger cat…

  Saaf Landan Tom had then suggested – meaning well, of course – that his cousin procure some of the potent catnip offered by the alley cats of Tollcross in exchange for certain “literatures”. Though grateful, Library Cat was sceptical of the advice after a bad experience that once resulted in a bout of torturous rodent-based hallucinations. One could never trust the Tollcross Nip.

  Library Cat thought it curious how, despite remaining sceptical about the advice offered by his cousins, he derived a definite warmth and reassurance from it nevertheless. And Saaf Landan Tom talked about feelings… Saaf Landan Tom never talked about feelings.

  I should stop sending my cousins to Coventry, Library Cat suddenly thought, feeling a little ashamed. What’s more, if I send them to Coventry, they end up sending me to Coventry, and that defeats the point. Because we end up being in Coventry together. And surely the last place two cats would want to be, whether they get on or not, is Coventry.

  At times like this, Library Cat wondered whether it might’ve been easier if he hadn’t been born a thinking cat – if he’d never had the warm, heady nirvana-pleasures of the Towsery, or the densely punctuated lines of Friedrich Nietzsche to send bright, happy thoughts across the pitchfork entrails of his synapses. He thought of all those cats who were not thinking cats. Right now they were all over Scotland: double-helixing their way between their Humans’ legs, neck craned up at a chicken titbit; offering purrs indiscriminately to whomever stopped to stroke them; chasing bits of string entirely at the whim of Human masters; trying to scream down their own reflection in long, thin IKEA mirrors…

  Would it be easier to be like them? wondered Library Cat.

  But no sooner had Library Cat begun to deconstruct the question and think of it from myriad angles than more Humans arrived with strokes and tickles. One even had some bacon rind. Another spoke softly and smelt nice.

  Library Cat couldn’t tell how, but he was definitely feeling better. And it was down to the right company. He had never been so pleased for the affection of the student Humans.

  Some three weeks earlier, in George Square, a lady and her son had been out walking their dog. The day had been beautifully clear, but now the clouds were racing and the lady worried that they may well be caught in one of those unforgiving Edinburgh downpours. As they let their dog off the lead to bound around the perimeters of the square, the young boy piped up to his mother.

  “Mummy, that cat’s seen Toby!”

  The lady furrowed her brow and called Toby back who cooperatively linked back with his lead.

  As the pair headed away from the square alongside the library towards the Meadows, the boy looked back.

  “Look Mummy! Ha ha! The cat’s running in circles! He’s chasing his tail.”

  “The poor wee thing probably has fleas,” the lady replied curtly, giving the dog a tug on his lead and upping her pace towards home with another suspicious glance at the sky.

  Recommended Reading

  Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig.

  Food consumed

  Bacon rind.

  Mood

  Empty, but improving.

  Discovery about Humans

  They can be kind and intuitive. They can be lifesavers.

  …in which our hero plays the long game

  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.

  …in which our hero rolls in cinnamon

  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.

  And his response? The same as that of any other cat when faced with something alarming and inexplicable: to glare at the nearest Human, with a mixture of distain and fear, as if they are solely to blame… on this occasion, a parking attendant in the middle of George Square.

  But the parking attendant merely walked by, busy issuing a fine to a man whose ticket had expired 23 seconds ago and who, at this very moment, was sprinting over the cobbles clutching a coffee yelling, “You b*****d! I was only in ****ing Sainsbury’s, you ********!”

  Perfectly horrendous, thought Library Cat. Maybe it isn’t the Humans that make me “Ffffffft” after all. He recalled having once before asked Biblio Chat about who was to blame for the strange “ffffffft” phenomenon.

  “Ah oui, le ‘Fffffffft!’” responded Biblio Chat. “Je ‘Ffffffftt’ beaucoup en été! Le cause? Un mystère…”

  “A mystery,” thought Library Cat, disappointed. “But surely everything has a cause? A reason? A purpose? A function?”

  “Non, de temps en temps, les chats – on ne sait pas toutes les réponses. On doit l’accepter, et tourner la page…”

  “Sometimes we just have to accept things and move on?”

  “Oui.”

  “Like the Human folly, and the laws of love?”

  “Oui, exactement, comme la folie des humains et les lois de l’amour.”

  Library Cat yawned. This was far too much. Too much activity for one day. Too many null-achievements. It was time to sleep.

  Recommended Reading

  Submarine by Joe Dunthorne.

  Food consumed

  Cinnamon.

  Mood

  Curious, startled.

  Discovery about Humans

  Sometimes cats accuse them falsely.

  …in which our hero

  realises it was all in his head

  The next morning, snow was falling outside and Library Cat found himself thinking about all the things he’d discovered about Humans over the last three months. He thought about how cats definitely had some things sussed like relaxing, savouring food, a respect for nature and a disinclination to stand for nonsense. But then he thought about how the Humans had sussed things that cats hadn’t, like machines that move, healthcare, buildings and how to fix roads. But then there were things that the Humans thought they had sussed but were actually embodiments of a kind of madness, like politics and wars and firework night and academic essay writing.

  And finally there were feelings and emotions. Humans tended to conceal their emotions and hide them behind silence or equivocal language. Cats expressed their emotions viscerally on their faces and in the movement of their tails, and used written language purely for learning and enjoyment. They relished its folly, its dance of meanings and sounds. They understood its limitations. It was a shame that there was no
feasible way for Human and cat to speak to each other, but then Library Cat got the overwhelming impression that Humans were sometimes so oblivious to the world around them that they were beyond learning from cats.

  Maybe they like us so much because they can imbue us with their own emotions, mused Library Cat smacking his lips and washing his face. We provide a sort of reciprocity for their feelings. At least that would explain their stupid cooing and sudden fits of sentimentality around anything with fur and four legs.

  He thought back at how contentment is the most important feeling for a cat and how undervalued it seemed at present for Humans. Instead, it was often usurped by its evil twin sister: desire. Humans thought that certain objects or people would make them suddenly happy, like chocolate or a partner with money, whereas really their discontentment rested within themselves, and these other things were a kind of smokescreen to divert their attention away from the truth – a self-deception in which they were all too adept at upholding.

  But then he thought how cats and Humans were similar. Their emotions were the same, and would eternally remain so. Shame would always be shame, happiness would always be happiness, and jealousy always jealousy. They both had intelligence and he noticed how, for thinking cats at least, the two species had a choice: they could either think life or live life. Thinking life had many pleasures. Thinking was beautiful, after all. Thinking was the loveliness of Puddle Cat, the Towsery in candlelight, literature read in George Square in summer, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernism, the Classics and the entire cornucopia of knowledge that adorns the colourful fruit bowl of our civilised world. But thinking could backfire. It could be frustratingly elusive and never quite reach the kernel. Worse still, it could go dangerously wrong. Despotic regimes. The slaughter of felines as devil-servants in the Middle Ages. The Black Dog… All were cases of erroneous thinking – little pieces of malware in the computer programming of the mind.