I’m trying to sleep but the cat is reading from Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy:
“Here the destruction is subtle, and there the body is torn. Here the breaking is perceived, and there the dead unaware carry their putrid remains.”
I open one very tired eye. The cat looks back at me, too smug for words. That is, I can’t find the words. The cat continues:
“All trade in filth, carry their filth one to another…”
“Alright already – I get the message!”
The cat closes the book and starts to lick its page-turning paw in a highly annoyning, self-satisfied way.
I mumble-curse, get up and head for the kitchen. It is extremely irritating of course but the bloody animal does have a point: it’s been a few days since I put fresh litter in its box.
Two hours later. Showered, dressed, fed the cat – got fed up with the cat, left for the park.
It’s a beautiful day: dry, not too sunny; no people, so no boom-boxes, babies or dribbling dogs. No pigeons, pterodactyls or other flying pests. Quite simply, it’s one of those odd, perfect points in time…
…so, of course, like some demented Tardis, a barrel organ noisily appears out of nowhere and starts screeching like Siouxsie giving birth to a quintuplet of Banshees.
I look in the general direction of the sky-box and do one of those Why, God, why??!! half-sighs, half-moans.
Then I strangle the organ grinder, grind the horse, set fire to the barrel organ (okay, but in my wilder dreams I do) and head back for home.
There I find the cat, sitting in my lazy chair, smoking my pipe and perusing my much cherished copy of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.
(The cat adores Hobbes; it’s got the T-shirt, the coffee mug and the bed spread.)
It’s very wrong to kick your pet, so I don’t. I just put on some Dylan instead, which annoys the cat much more than any half-hearted kick could have achieved. It disappears through the huff side of the cat flap.
(Two years ago the girlfriend painted directions on the cat flap. Coming in it reads ‘hug’; going out it spells ‘huff’.)
With any luck the cat will go to the park, cross paths with the organ barrel and strangle the man, grind the horse etcetera. With my luck though I’m sure the evil little bastard will just return with a dead pigeon – or pterodactyl.
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