by Alex Howard
Alex Howard
Illustrations by Miriam Wilson
BLACK & WHITE PUBLISHING
First published 2016
by Black & White Publishing Ltd
29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL
www.blackandwhitepublishing.com
This electronic edition published in 2016
ISBN: 978 1 78530 035 6 in ePub format
ISBN: 978 1 78530 016 5 in Paperback format
Copyright © Alex Howard 2016
The right of Alex Howard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The publisher has made every reasonable effort to contact copyright holders of images in this book. Any errors are inadvertent and anyone who for any reason has not been contacted is invited to write to the publisher so that a full acknowledgement can be made in subsequent editions of this work.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
To my parents and Ellie
Contents
Library Cat
Breakfast
Freshers
Roadworks
Politics
Puddle Cat
On The Prowl
Shame
Proximate Bird
Essay Completion Week
The Arrival of Biblio Chat
Crepuscular
Fireworks Night
“There, there, Library Cat!”
Overdue
Missing
The Black Dog
The Byronic Side
Sneeze
Symbiosis
Noel
Library Cat’s Bibliography
And those who were seen dancing
were thought to be insane by those
who could not hear the music.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Library Cat is not like most cats. This is because Library Cat is a thinking cat.
I think therefore I am, thought Library Cat one autumn morning. (You see what I mean?)
Library Cat lives in Edinburgh. He has one white paw and one black paw with a white tip that makes it look like it has been dipped into a churn of fresh milk. Along his back runs fur so fine and ethereal that in the correct light it shimmers like a cornfield in a summer breeze. His eyes are green and flecked with gold – more alert than a normal cat’s. Just right of his nose is a little white splodge, as if his mouth had got too close while lapping from the same milk churn, and from this mouth extend whiskers so unusually elegant and curled that one might suspect, on seeing them alone, that there is something magical about Library Cat.
Library Cat was born eight years ago in the Edinburgh University Chaplaincy. Despite a rather biblical sense of self-importance, he is not, however, an especially religious cat. Among the litter, he has six other brothers and sisters. Library Cat is the only thinking cat among them. His brothers and sisters had gone on to live perfectly pleasant lives, with warm firesides and good cardboard boxes to sleep in, they were well-fed and well-groomed and they had become a most serviceable set of mouse catchers.
But things had turned out a little differently for Library Cat. This is because, a mere two months following his birth, something started to kindle inside his mind. It was the spark of thought. He therefore did what all thinking cats are destined to do: seek out books. This is why you can still find him in and out of Edinburgh University Library to this day, sitting in his favourite turquoise chair in the foyer, the perfect place in which to sleep, think and observe.
Library Cat has many things he likes, and many more things he dislikes. Among his favourite things are bacon rind, tickles behind the left ear, and the stunning eloquence of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Among his most disliked things are fireworks, water (except to drink), unsubstantiated claims, the Black Dog (from whom he lived in terror), noises between the frequency range of 4.5 and 16.5 hertz, Human-to-Animal condescension, the beige colour of pot-hole puddles, drug trafficking, cucumbers and exuberance.
Library Cat has a French cousin called Biblio Chat. Biblio Chat is also a thinking cat. This does not mean he and Library Cat agree on everything. Far from it. Biblio Chat detests bacon rind. It lacks, if we are to quote him accurately, Le Crunch Facteur.
Among Biblio Chat’s most cherished things are radiators between the temperature range of 38 and 40.5 degrees centigrade, tickles under his neck, being combed and pâté. He too hates Human-to-Animal condescension as well the recent rise in political apathy. He is also more successful with girl cats than Library Cat.
Library Cat often found himself thinking negatively towards his cousin: Damn him and his showy rejection of dried food! What’s wrong with Whiskas Tuna? It’s adequate nourishment, is it not? The Crunch Factor indeed!
But Biblio Chat is a thinking cat, and that counts for a lot. There are precious few thinking cats on this earth. Indeed, a thinking cat is lucky if he finds one other thinking cat with whom to share thoughts during his entire lifetime, let alone one who is also a blood relation.
Library Cat does not own much, though one might be forgiven for believing that he owns everything he ever sat on, looked at, biffed with his paw and chased through the grass. But one thing Library Cat definitely does own are his thoughts. They twist through his mind like the threads of dye in water. Some are delicious and featured succulent mice, warm beds and the crisp, colourful imagery of Sylvia Plath; others – like paradoxes, quadratic equations and Human warfare – are grey and dead-ended, and strike tiny sparks of discord across his little feline synapses. One thing that he’s sure about, however, is that his thoughts… all his thoughts… are his own. And nobody knows about them, not least of all any Human.
And what a relief that is, thought Library Cat.
So the time has come, Human, to sit back and behold those tiny white pearls of thought of a cat’s mind. Read carefully; you never know, you might just learn something. After all, Library Cat thinks us Humans have it all wrong. And he’s going to show us why...
…in which our hero eats things, and
momentarily impersonates a policeman
Library Cat was trying to sleep. He was counting sheep to help him:
One, and indeed, Two, and indeed Three, and indeed, Four, and indeed, Fiv – hmm, would we call that one a “sheep”? Could be a goat?… And indeed Five, and indeed Six, and indeed Seven…
It was early morning. All around Library Cat’s bed, dust sparkled in a thin ray of sunlight. Around him, books rested in hidden corners. There were thick books, small books, old books with golden spines and bookmarks of red ribbon, boxes of books, and – his favourite – books with small slivers of catnip sitting on top of them.
And indeed Eight, and indeed Nine, and indeed, Ten… On the floor was more ribbon, this time chewed and frayed, and scattered like confetti. To one side was a scruffy bowl of dried food and water, and beyond it, a dusty cat flap that swayed gently in the gusty autumn air.
And indeed Eleven, and indeed Twel… OH IT’S NO USE! Library Cat opened his eyes, a resigned expression on his face. Lazily he raised himself up on his four paws and arched his back up into an old medieval humpbacked bridge. He paused. Then, after a brief shake of the head, he yawned, revealing a whole line of pink, concertinaed ridges along the back of his mouth.
That feels most pleasing, he thought.
And now his paws. First the black one with the white tip – he stretched it right out like a policeman’s truncheon raised in warning. Ne
xt, his white paw followed in slow succession. And then he rested (for too much sudden exercise is detrimental to a cat’s constitution). Some moments later, after a brief snooze, he rose fully and walked over to the window. His bedroom was in the basement, and in order to see the outside world he was forced to leap upon a low windowsill and raise himself up on his hind legs, his forepaws on the windowpane, so that his eye line was just about level with the pavement outside. Today, he gazed out blearily. Beyond the cobblestoned road that lay a short trot from the chaplaincy’s railings was George Square, littered with coloured leaves that spun in little vortices of wind along the pavement. It was early autumn and the light was apricot coloured, and as the little leaves spun crisply down the pavement, Library Cat sensed for the first time that summer was well and truly over.
A few moments later, Library Cat was pushing his head out of his grubby cat flap into the chilly morning air. All was perfectly still. A bolt of cold shivered through his paw as he touched it down upon the damp pavement stone. Around him, the tenements eyed each other like battalions of troops frozen in the anticipation of an impending battle. In the distance beyond the square, a bus lumbered drowsily through the early morning mist. On the air was the Weetabixy scent of the McEwan’s brewery that was so characteristic of the city this time of year.
One must not think on an empty stomach, considered Library Cat, and with that he looked down at his paws. The gaps between the cobbles were rinded with dirt and moss, but deep within these gaps there lay little treats that only a cat’s eye might see – bugs! After voraciously lapping up some creepy-crawly hors d’oeuvres, Library Cat turned right and headed to Edinburgh University’s Main Library that stood like a cold grey cube in the silent morning air.
Recommended Reading
Ulysses by James Joyce.
Food consumed
1 x fat beetle, and 1 x millipede thing.
Mood
Moderate, rising. Becoming good.
Discovery about Humans
They don’t come out in the early morning.
…in which our hero visits the Towsery,
meets some Freshers, and refuses to find
the word “Bush” remotely amusing
Library Cat peered into the library and saw many things. For a non-thinking cat, it would have seemed a perilous place to be sure.
Firstly, there were sliding glass doors which, when closed, were the perfect width apart for cat decapitation. Then there was a staircase that zigzagged high up into the roof that reminded him of an Escher painting. At this early hour in the morning, the foyer was still quiet; only the television screens buzzed softly displaying their images of books and artefacts, while upon the ceiling a large projector hummed as it shone a dust-sparkled ray of light upon a white screen that bore the heading “Information for Students”. To the right, there was a desk of Humans that looked important. On busier days, these Humans sounded a bell and barked in incandescent rage at every fourth or fifth Human attempting to leave, barring them from freedom and jabbing their fingers accusingly at the student Humans’ rucksacks.
It’s much easier being a cat, thought Library Cat as he slipped under the glass doors and into the foyer and immediately into the cooing welcome of a beaming librarian.
“Morning, Library Cat! Here’s some bacon. D’aw, aren’t you cute!”
Indeed, thought Library Cat, his fur bristling at the condescension. Kindly don’t judge me on my looks alone.
Curving his back under the Human’s stroke, Library Cat quickly devoured the bacon and slinked away to head for the Towsery.
There are Towseries in libraries all over the world. Many Humans would have it that the only reason cats are attracted to libraries is for comfort. They are, after all, warm with many slow-moving, unthreatening Humans who are happy to offer tickles and provide titbits. In reality, this is only half the reason why thinking cats like Library Cat are irresistibly attracted to libraries. What Humans fail to realise is that, for a thinking cat, a library plays much the same role as it does for a thinking Human: it is a receptacle of knowledge, a bricked container of a thousand thoughts and ideas. Generations of thinking cats, much like Library Cat, have tried to position themselves among the ranks of the Human readers, and have headed directly for the stacks of books and boxes of books, only to be shooed away by spectacle-wearing, broom-brandishing, lilac-donning librarians.
Just because we don’t speak doesn’t mean we’re incapable of thought, Library Cat had mused on such occasions, his eyes glowering.
As a result, at some point during the last century, and around the time of T. S. Eliot’s seminal work on cats, there had been a kind of feline uprising. Thinking cats began to revolt. Unbeknownst to Humans, they began to pioneer their own, unlimited, underground access to literature. Their method? Well, that’s magical and a closely guarded secret. But rest assured that in every library frequented by a cat across the globe, there is a secret stack of books hidden out of sight, known only as ‘the Towsery’.
The Towsery is warm. It is often located high up in the eves of a library, where cobwebs, wooden beams and joists criss-cross above the cats’ heads. It is bright, with stunning views. Often, there are windows that are small and low to the ground, so that the thinking cat may gaze out, if he wishes, in order that he may more thoroughly ruminate upon the particular book he is currently engrossed in. Library Cat loved these windows. The Towsery in the Edinburgh University Library had wonderful views: in winter, there are the snow-covered Pentland Hills, breaking thickly like waves across the horizon. In May and June, there are the Meadows directly beneath and the Humans having barbecues, the very smoke from which seeming to christen the onset of summer’s lease. In spring there’s pink blossom in the gutters, and quick-paced Humans heading to the library to revise, while right now – autumn – everything becomes amber as leaves start to fall unveiling the criss-cross of paths in the Meadows and the Humans upon them scurrying to and fro like tiny little mice. And at a cat’s eye line, at all times of the year, were the chimneypots, extended out in all directions like blond fields of newly sliced wheat. A good Towsery has a decent supply of bugs and birdlife, and the Towsery at Edinburgh University Library boasted a plentiful supply of these things, and was particularly famed for its pigeon and spider. A good Towsery would have a good alpha – a Towser, as he or she is known – to ensure plentiful supplies of catnip, regular supervision against overwork and protection against Human interference.
It may not come as a surprise, Human, that Library Cat was the incumbent Towser at Edinburgh University Library.
“But where do the books come from?” you may ask.
Well, to answer that question, we must turn to the librarians! For centuries, librarians have been plagued by mysteries: disappearing books, curiously accrued fines, unlabelled books, books with pages missing, books positioned in odd places, books with things written in the margins… On many such occasions, students have been wrongly blamed, and had their accounts locked and their graduations postponed until the book has been returned, replaced, cleaned, repositioned or reordered. How little both parties know! How much false blame has been issued! How little they know that pernicious thinking cats have been at work, prodding books off the return trolleys and dragging them under the stacks, and that the curiously “mislaid” item has instead ended up in the dustiest, furriest, most hidden corner of the library’s Towsery, perused by clandestine groups of incognito thinking cats.
Serves the Humans right for their carelessness, thought Library Cat this morning, as he slinked quietly behind the helpdesk and headed for the Towsery.
Half an hour later, he emerged back into the foyer, having primed his mind for a good few hours of Human-watching. This morning, the first thing he noticed was the speed with which they were all moving. Darting in all directions across the foyer were frantic, fresh-faced students, earnestly heading up stairs and clutching books, some of them tripping, some of them speaking quickly in lilting voices with an especial f
ondness for the word “like”. Library Cat eavesdropped on one particular conversion:
“Yeah, like, I was like sooo hung-over after Hive last night? Like, I was in my lecture and like so wanted to chunder, but like couldn’t…?”
Are they speaking another language? thought Library Cat, confused. And why are they ending every sentence with a strange inflection, as if everything’s a question? And what’s this about a “Hive”?
Irritated, Library Cat slinked through the crowd, many of whom didn’t even notice him, and trod terrifyingly close to his tail. Then, disaster struck. As he turned the corner towards his turquoise chair in the foyer, he found it occupied by a student Human, who cavalierly sat in it while chewing gum, utterly ignorant to the fact that it was his, was covered in his hair, and was reserved indefinitely for his furry posterior alone. Library Cat became enraged. Wide-eyed and pursed-up, he ventured out into the fresh cold autumn air. And then it hit him.
They’ve arrived, he thought. The Freshers are here; that’s one sitting on my turquoise chair.
Over the years, Library Cat had grown quite accustomed to recognising a Fresher. Since his reading habits eschewed all knowledge of the university’s academic timetable, Library Cat was forced to find other means of recognising Freshers. This wasn’t too difficult, as the typical Edinburgh University Fresher usually betrayed themselves relatively quickly through certain mispronunciations that could not go unnoticed by a fastidious, all-listening-and-thinking cat such as himself. Examples of these mispronunciations included:
1. Pronouncing Teviot as “Tevv-i-yot”.
2. Pronouncing Buccleuch Street as “Buck-Looch Street”.
3. Pronouncing Ceilidh as “Ker-lye-der”.
4. Pronouncing Potterrow as “Potter-rowe”.
Other giveaways were:
5. Wandering into the library and asking “Is this ‘The Advice Place’?”