Library Cat

by Alex Howard

  Then, just as Library Cat was dozing off to sleep, it hit him. Contentment! That’s what the Humans all *really* crave. That’s what us cats have and they don’t! It’s not wealth, fortune, sex and fame that they need, just contentment. And the tragedy is not that they cannot achieve it but rather they don’t know that it is contentment that they are craving. They always assume it’s something else… another thing that needs to be achieved, or bought, or done… yet they’ve lost sight of the end goal. They make happiness an invisible mouse and then spend their entire life chasing it. But they just want contentment. There is no mouse to chase.

  Library Cat’s head became heavy. It was all too much thinking for one day. He rested his head down on his sheepskin, and started counting sheep. One, and indeed, Two; and, indeed, Three, and… And then the rest was sleep, and the deep silk of lovely dreams.

  Recommended Reading

  More Fool Me by Stephen Fry.

  Food consumed

  Piece of ham sandwich.

  Mood

  Slightly concerned. Exhausted.

  Discovery about Humans

  They have forgotten what it is they’re running after.

  …in which our hero

  narrowly avoids becoming enflamed

  Library Cat rose, after a long paw-twitching sleep. He stood on his hind legs upon the windowsill of his bedroom to survey the weather outside. Autumn was turning to winter and things seemed sharp. Instead of autumnal oranges and browns, the square was slowly becoming blanched of its colour. All seemed frigid and still. Without further ado, Library Cat headed out through his cat flap and trotted up the stone steps of the chaplaincy into the square, tiny little clouds once again gusting out of his mouth in the cold. It felt nice to leave Biblio Chat behind snoozing on the couch, and Library Cat’s free, empty mind lifted up into the still air in a kind of relief. No more thinking. Not for today. Today was for a walk and exploring. The mousing season was nearly over, and Library Cat knew there’d be precious few remaining opportunities for a hunt. He sniffed the cold iron of the square’s gates and glanced momentarily over to his right and to the yellow warmth of the library.

  Winter is better lived in; but summer is better dreamed of, he mused suddenly, squeezing between the bars of the gate and into the peaceful greenery.

  He hadn’t walked any further than a couple of steps, and his mind hadn’t done much more than congratulate itself for coming up with the insightful winter/summer maxim, than his paw knocked against something hard. He glanced down. Beneath his legs was a long stick, with what appeared to be a red mouse on the end of it. He assumed it was a mouse, since it was mouse-sized and had a long thin tail projecting from its rear. He craned his neck down to sniff it. It smelt spicy and fierce.

  That is not a mouse! he thought, his heart pounding as he galloping a few paces back, the peppery odour still clinging to his nostrils. It smelt a bit like catnip and fire mixed together. Tentatively he edged forward and re-examined the stick that seemed to impale the fiery-smelling mouse. He licked the end and gagged slightly. It was coloured red with yellow stripes. Nearby there was a soggy poster; it had the same red and yellow stripes plastered on it, top to bottom, and in the middle was large ballooning writing:

  COME TO OUR FIREWORKS DISPLAY!!

  THIS THURSDAY, 5TH NOVEMBER ON THE MEADOWS!

  ALL WELCOME!! MISS IT AND MISS OUT!!!

  Library Cat didn’t like the poster. The plethora of exclamation marks alone made him deeply weary.

  I’d rather miss out, he thought, sardonically going back to give the strange plastic mouse thing another sniff. Again he jumped, his eyes widening. There was something about the smell that spelt: fear-fear-fear!

  I must get to the bottom of this business, he asserted to himself, and marched over to the bustling steps of the library.

  The foyer of the library was pleasingly empty that afternoon. Library Cat slipped his head under the sliding glass gates and over to his favourite turquoise chair where he sat and pondered about how best to conduct his research on the red mouse-like stick thing. The odd student walked moodily up the zigzagging staircase, while in the far corner a Human in a yellow jacket started to push a large, droning box with a wet rotating disc under it for no apparent reason whatsoever. Library Cat watched it with suspicion, recalling his inexorable hatred of vacuum cleaners.

  This is no place to think, he mused begrudgingly and with that he slipped away over to the secret portal to the Towsery.

  That morning, the Towsery was alive with noise and commotion. Cats paced up and down agitated and mewing frantically, oblivious to the glow of the warm fire and the small platter of meats and milk that sat aside the fire grate. They eyed Library Cat’s arrival furtively. There was an odd atmosphere in the air; the cats were anxious about something. It wasn’t long before Library Cat deduced what all the fuss was about.

  There, on the floor covered in hairs, was another of the mouseoid rocket things with a stick attached to it laying in the middle of the room, positioned carefully upon a small pile of books as if it were an exhibit in a crime case, or the biggest most bejewelled crown in the Tower of London. Next to it, several calendars were scattered, one of which was open at 5th November. Alongside these were history books, some old with golden-edged pages, and others newer with coloured illustrations. Library Cat looked upon these pictures with some alarm. Upon one of them was a sketch of a Human with a great beard donning a peculiar set of clothes entitled “Guy Fawkes”. Across his jovial, belligerent face ran five parallel lashes where a cat’s wrath had got the better of him, leading him to scratch the image of this Fawkes character and the shady threatening context that seemed to surround him. At the top left of the page there was printed in tiny, block capitals a date, 1605, and this had plainly caused some interest among the more learned thinking cats in the Towsery that morning, since many of the adjacent older books were opened at pages that also displayed 1605 alongside various articles and historical entries. Several notebooks lay nearby containing notes that the cats had evidently written out in haste.

  As Library Cat began poring over the documents, it soon became clear that the Humans engaged in a type of ritualistic behaviour on 5th November. Things were burnt and detonated and they all bayed and swooned at the marvel of it all. It seemed that on this particular day, the Humans adopted rather backward behaviour that aligned itself closely with the bloodthirsty, torturous victimisation cats prior to the Enlightenment. Library Cat’s eyes widened; he, like all thinking cats, was well versed since kittenhood in the Humans’ cruel treatment of cats before the Enlightenment. Bad harvests, bad weather and tyrannical monarchs were just a couple of the things that featured within the inexhaustible list of Bad Things for which cats were wrongly accused. All because they apparently were the Devil’s disciples. These days, the majority of Humans were educated and had eschewed these barbaric superstitions. Towsers and cats that lived near libraries were especially immune. However, there were occasionally exceptions, and black cats or part-black cats like Library Cat were listed in the “Most-Likely-To-Be-Sacrificed-For-Witchcraft” category. Even some academic Humans had upheld their prejudices against the cat despite the Enlightenment. Good academic Humans too: Charles Bukowski, for instance, maintained up until his death that, “The cat is the beautiful devil.”

  Library Cat’s eyes swivelled from article to article, his heartbeat increasing until they eventually rested upon one article in particular. On the top left of the page was a small column that had been violently underlined in red by the other cats:

  On occasion, in Scotland and Edinburgh especially, similar acts of […] burning and torture were levelled against cats who were believed to be associated with the Jacobite line.

  (39 qtd. in The Thinking Cats’ Guide to Existential Emergencies)

  Alongside the quotation was an image of an unfortunate cat in the grip of occultist Humans that Library Cat tried to forget. He stared into the middle distance, and took a deep breath:

&nbs
p; OK. It’s Bonfire Night. Stay calm, Library Cat, stay calm. Notice the article is written in the past tense. These things are OVER. Most Humans are, and will remain, Enlightened and will behave kindly towards cats. These mouse rocket things – Fireworks – are so shaped to lure the more hapless, gullible cats into the Humans’ ritualistic behaviours. But we are one step ahead of them. We know their game. We shall resist. We must all have faith that their sanity will return by morning.

  Library Cat promptly set to work. From the back of his mind came the image of a particular book. He knew it was stored in the Towsery, and could identify it by its own unique scent-code within the dusty stacks. He speedily found it along the stack and prodded it with his paw so it plopped into the aisle the other side. He pawed it over to the group in the centre of the room.

  Surviving Bonfire Night by F. H. Pushkin was a tried and tested survival guide for Bonfire Night whose instructions had been perfected and tweaked across the years in subsequent editions. Library Cat opened it to a double-page spread depicting an incredibly detailed schematic, replete with illustrations and arrows and peppered with bullet points. Along the top, in large letters, read the following:

  THE THINKING CAT’S GUIDE TO SURVIVING FIREWORK NIGHT

  STAY CALM. The cat community is not under siege.

  RESIST TEMPTATION to eschew Humans. They cannot be blamed for their inferior hearing and warped sense of fun.

  ABSTAIN FROM CATNIP. Hallucinations can result, and this might cause chasing so-called “sparklers”.

  MAINTAIN DIGNITY at all times. If your Human is kindly in nature, it is probable that they will subject you to a twenty-four-hour incarceration. Trust them. Maintain poise and refrain from chewing, spraying or soiling as this might result in your being jettisoned out into the hellish maelstrom.

  REFRAIN FROM PURRING. Try to cause your Human some mild concern by remaining close-at-hand, yet not quite yourself. This can also be affected by adopting the demeanour of existential malaise (see Camus, Baudelaire

  et al.) Know above all that the episode will pass and normality will resume.

  Library Cat looked around at the panic. There were some cats he’d never seen before, whereas others he was sure he had seen but was pretty sure they were indoor cats, and had stolen away purely to attend this emergency meeting. This seemed to make them doubly nervous. As head Towser at Edinburgh University’s Library, Library Cat felt he should do something to restore order. He let out a long, sonorous meow.

  “Mmmmmmwwwwwwwoooooooooohhhhhhrrrrr wwwww.”

  All of a sudden, the cats froze, their backs arched and their fur still spiky with tension. That did the trick, thought Library Cat to himself contentedly.

  Suddenly, inches from one of the Towsery’s high windows, a shocking pink light flashed. All the Towsery’s walls illuminated with bright stroboscopic light. Then blue then green then yellow. And finally, a few split seconds later, a series of enormous bangs. Suddenly, panic descended once again as if Library Cat’s authoritative “meow” had merely paused them in a freeze-frame. This time, it was a while before Library Cat could restore order once more. The first rockets are always the worst, recalled Library Cat, the horror of former years now starting to come back to him.

  The hours that followed were tense, but Library Cat kept order. The cats slowly started to calm down and have faith in Library Cat’s reassurance. As night fell darker and darker, each cat chose an existential philosopher and read their work voraciously. By 9 pm, all cats were starting to feel confident that they could adopt a manipulative lustre of blame and anger that they could then direct towards their Human owners throughout the night, so that the latter might be guilt-tripped into thinking that their pet believed them to be completely and utterly responsible for all their suffering.

  Eventually, Library Cat managed to convince the rest of the Towsers that enough Baudelaire and Sartre had been read, and that it was now time to put what they had learnt into practice and head home for incarceration.

  Library Cat’s walk back from the library to the chaplaincy that evening was unpleasant to be sure. The Humans had clearly run mad. In the square, some were lighting the tails of the so-called ‘firework’ mice and standing back as the object propelled itself into the stratosphere with a hellish squeak before eviscerating its insides in a great psychedelic balloon of fire and colour. A tangy miasma sat thickly upon the cold air, while down on the Meadows, just the other side of the library, a large bonfire had been lit. On it, the Humans had indeed place an effigy of Guy Fawkes. The flames that licked up around the sappy wood whistled in the breeze. There were whoops of joy and more bangs.

  Well at least they seem to be having fun, thought Library Cat, upping his pace to the warm chaplaincy.

  Inside, Biblio Chat was still sleeping peacefully on the couch and, as Library Cat curled up in his bed, the door of his basement room was promptly locked behind him.

  I never did catch any mice, thought Library Cat sullenly as he dozed off to sleep, the bangs and pops slowly muting with the veil of night.

  Recommended Reading

  Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces by Angela Carter.

  Food consumed

  2mg of gunpowder (later sicked up).

  Mood

  Ambassadorial, poised.

  Discovery about Humans

  Flashing lights and celebrations seem to make them happy.

  …in which our hero

  meets The Green Human

  The next morning, Library Cat was awoken with a rumble of the tummy. Hunger. Last night’s commotion had left him feeling edgy and wide-eyed, but now his stomach was singing whale music to get his attention. He rolled over and over in his bed to try and settle it. The need to rise for food fell just short of a greater need to sleep more. From upstairs there came the sound of running water and the scrub-a-dub-dub sound of a Human thoroughly cleansing their nether regions.

  Why must they make such a poppy show of it? thought Library Cat burying his head under his blanket from the noise. And why are they up so early anyhow?

  He sank his head deeper under his blanket, but that was a little bit too hot. He rose and kneaded his blanket and turned a few times on the spot and attempted to settle again, but that was too cold. He picked up his blanket and dragged it into the room and away from the radiator, but there was a slight draft across his face. He buried his head once more, this time into his paws, and curled up tightly like an ammonite shell and tried his old tactic of counting sheep.

  One, and indeed, Two, and indeed Three, and indeed, Four, and indeed, Five, and indeed, Six, and indeed…

  All of a sudden from upstairs came the bellowing voice of a Human, muffled through the floorboards above.

  “Library Cat? Oh, Library Cat? Where are you? It’s OK, there’s nothing to be scared of Library Cat…!”

  Fine! thought Library Cat, opening his eyes and surrendering himself to the day. Sluggishly he rose and stretched, uttering a little “prrrrrp” with all the effort. Nosing out from his blanket, he sniffed the crumb-ridden carpet for a few morsels of cat food that had been scattered there. He followed this up by snapping at a couple of non-existent insects in the air above him. His tummy made a rumble once again.

  “Library Cat! It’s OK, you’ll be all right, Library Cat!”

  Waaaaaaaaaait a minute… thought Library Cat, his pupils suddenly dilating. What do you mean “I’ll be all right”? What are you planning to do to me?! Something was awry: the Human was plotting. Up early, shower, pacing around looking for him while offering faux-reassurance in a disingenuously lilting voice? Something was wrong. Library Cat thought quickly. With the stealth of a panther, he slinked up the stairs into the hallway of the chaplaincy and into the living room. He could see the silhouette of the Human in the kitchen beyond, crouched down hunting for him behind the boiler.

  Annnd… Distraction! thought Library Cat, biffing over a large vase with his paw sending it plummeting to an unearthly crash on the flagstones beneath, before bolting
back down to his basement room for a post-match paw lick and scratch. Above he could hear his Human voicing yells of anger and incredulity.

  That’ll see him busy for the next twenty minutes, asserted Library Cat to himself contentedly.

  In the calm that settled, Library Cat began to prepare for the day. He soon became acutely aware of a most glorious smell. His mouth began to water. Following his nose, he found his way to the cat flap. There, spread out on the laundry room floor, was the most delicious hamper of freshly slayed prey he had ever beheld. It teemed with blues, browns, greys and violets… all the variety a cat could ever want. Firstly, beneath his forepaws, was a stout trout recently caught from Duddingston Loch. It glimmered green and silver in the midday sun. Then there was a prime Grassmarket rat, long of tail and plump of belly. Beneath this lay an Arthur’s Seat rabbit, muscular of leg and pert of ear. And finally there was a spectacular Pentland Pheasant, her rainbow feathers perfectly interlaced, and her downy breast succulent. All this was topped off with a side of assorted beetle, woodlouse and grasshopper.

  Next to the dazzling array was a note:

  Cher cousin,

  Pour l’hiver…

  Adieu,

  Biblio Chat

  How on earth does he do it? Library Cat thought to himself, open-mouthed with awe at the breath-taking finesse with which his cousin caught, prepared and arranged the food. The hunting ability alone was something Library Cat could only marvel at, forcing him to bow down at the altar of true and timeless art.