by Alex Howard
There were some books in his bedroom that belonged to his Human, that was for sure… both Library Cat and his Human possessed a shared interest in the Palladian landscape revival of the early Pre-Raphaelite period. But most of them belonged to the library. The ones that belonged to the library, however, were very easy to identify. They were the ones with little stickers on their spines that displayed a series of numbers and letters. These formed around 90 per cent of the pile, and also bore the crest of Edinburgh University emblazoned on their colophon page.
I suppose I should return them some day, ruminated Library Cat. But then again, he thought, they are very big books. And the library is surely aware that such books will require some time to finish reading, and more time still to study properly. Take this book for instance – the one that has “HUB RESERVE” written on its spine. It’s called Marxism and Literary Criticism by a Human called Terry Eagleton. That is an enormous topic, and no doubt numerous scholars and thinking cats have devoted their entire lives to studying Marxism in literature alone. I mean, it’s not as if I could feasibly read Marxism and Literary Criticism in – say – three hours, is it? That would be utterly ridiculous.
And so Library Cat, confident in his conjectures, and putting off the return of his books for another week, or month, or year, rose from his bed, walked over to an open book, and sat on it as a throne upon which to commence his morning preening regime. Once completed, he sneezed on another book that had “SPECIAL ARTEFACT” written on its spine, sicked up a fur ball on another that had “HANDLE ONLY WITH GLOVES” on its side, and finally sharpened his paws on the papyrus-like ancient pages of a third book stating “DO NOT REMOVE FROM LIBRARY”. He gazed down at the gouges made in the yellowing paper in the wake of his paws.
This completed, he finally tucked into a breakfast of woodlice and catnip. Presently, it was reading time and Library Cat nosed his way towards the cat flap that already swung open and closed in the wind.
The air outside was glacial. Everywhere, hands were shoved down pockets and necks were thickly embossed with coloured scarfs. Above, an aeroplane droned crisply through the air. Library Cat watched as it banked towards the Firth of Forth, and then left towards Edinburgh Airport, its landing gear lowering like a gently unfolding popup book.
Weird bird, he thought, eyeing it suspiciously as it disappeared from view, his pupils dilating with curiosity.
I must seek out its nest one day.
Just as Library Cat began to ponder how a bird could fly so steadily, with no flap of the wings, and what such a bird’s nest would look like and how best to hunt it, there came through the air the clap-clap-clap-clap sound of running shoes. Library Cat looked to his left. A student was darting along the perimeter of the square towards the library. In his left arm, he cradled a precarious stack of books; in his right he held a telephone up to his ear into which he yelled frantically.
“Yah, I, like, totally forgot I had two HUB Reserve books overnight, they’re, like, hours overdue. I’m going to have a massive fine, and not be able to graduate until it’s paid off, yah? They charge you £2 for each minute…?”
Hmmmm, thought Library Cat, his mind turning to the thousands of library books he kept in his bedroom. The image sat comfortably in his head for about two and a half seconds before a thick panic began to gloop through muscles like mantle. A few hours overdue… and yet this Human seems very worried.
Then it struck Library Cat like a rock. How could he have been so stupid?
A FINE!
And so it was, that at that very moment, Library Cat was introduced to that heinous mix of feelings that all stalwart-yet-tardy library users are familiar with: financial anxiety, shame, guilt and, of course, loneliness resulting from lifelong ostracism from the library in question. His name would be denounced. No more Towsery. No more bacon rind! No more warmth! A cat in the doghouse…
Every minute! Every MINUTE!? (Library Cat turned the word over and over in his head like a fluffy catnip ball.)
So I’ve been charged £2 for every minute The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche was not returned to the HUB Reserve? Dating back all the way to 30th October 2012? But that’s... £4,261,120! thought Library Cat, beads of sweat now beginning to seep through the underside of his paws and onto the clammy tarmac.
And that’s just ONE BOOK! I have over 150 books out at present, so that’s…(!)
Library Cat’s mind folded in at the figure. He had nothing to compare it with. He’d once overheard that seventy-five million Humans had read his thoughts on the Internet, but this figure far exceeded that. It was a figure only comparable to those that astrophysicists use to describe the distance to the outermost satellite of the outermost planet orbiting the outermost star in the outermost solar system known to Humankind… stated in millimetres.
He thought fast.
Missing, I have to go missing!
Library Cat had always been reluctant to go missing. Biblio Chat often played the Chat Perdu card whenever he’d vomited on the carpet. Biblio Chat would then vainly admire the pictures of himself pasted up on the local boulangerie window, before clawing them down by the veil of night and storing them as valedictory talismans for his already hugely inflated ego. He’d then return home to cuddles and a veritable bounty of sweetmeats in his basket. All in all, it made the self-induced vomiting thoroughly worthwhile.
But to Library Cat, going missing always seemed like the coward’s way out somehow – effective in garnering contrition among Humans, but never really resolving any issues. It’d be a short-term solution. He’d still be a cat on the run…
How can I pay up? I don’t have any money! A bird perhaps?
Library Cat had attempted to offer his thanks by delivering a bird to the library staff once, but the act of generosity had dramatically backfired. Hearing the shrieks of disgust as he placed the bird at the feet of one particular librarian as she enjoyed a sandwich on her break, Library Cat assumed that the bird was not satisfactory to her taste. Consequently he went back out on the hunt the next night and caught an even bigger bird as well as a rat. This cannot fail to delight, he’d thought, but the response the next day was even worse.
So I cannot get a bird. Umm… ummm… ummm…
Library Cat found himself pacing up and down on the spot. A lion locked in the cage of his own anxiety. Despite his books being overdue now for several years, and despite having never once been reprimanded or called to account over his crime, Library Cat nevertheless felt utterly sure that at this very moment, he was being watched by scores of surveillance computers, tracking his every move from space, each one poised to intervene at a moment’s notice sending a gaggle of baying Humans looking for him. All this time he’d been at peace when he should’ve been fraught with worry! All this time he’s been holding the gaze of myriad CCTV cameras, all latched onto him, swivelling sinisterly on their necks like a flock of malevolent barn owls. There were probably a host of computers all packed high with details of his book theft. By night, he was an infrared blob seen from above, a glowing tumour darting under bushes on the Meadows and George Square, seen even despite the thick, luminous alveoli that made up Edinburgh’s patchwork of streets and cul-de-sacs when viewed from the night sky.
Purring. Surely I can just purr. Purring solves everything. I shall purr all debts clean. It’s scientifically proven to have a manipulative effect upon Humans.
With a game plan, Library Cat felt a little better. Convinced that ostracism from the library loomed ever closer, he took a deep breath and walked over to the library, ducked under the glass doors, and marched high of head and straight of tail over to the Help Desk counter.
“Evenin’ Library Cat.”
“Purr purr purr purr.”
“Okay, Okay, I’ll get ye some bacon… jus’ wait there…”
Job’s a good’un, thought Library Cat, this seems to be going well.
As he waited for the librarian to return with the promised bacon, the same student he’d seen running earli
er with the books arrived at the counter next to him. He watched as he unloaded the ungainly stack of monographs on the desk in front while the librarian scanned them one by one. When the librarian reached the final book, she looked interrogatingly back at her computer screen.
“Honestly, that’s, like all the books I have? I don’t, like, have any more?”
“According to our records,” the librarian said weightily, “we’re still due back The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche…”
A cold sweat ran through Library Cat down to his paws.
“No, I swear I returned that years ago, I swear.”
“Hmmm.”
Waaaaait a minute, thought Library Cat suddenly, a relief starting to tingle across his fur like a warm duvet. The fine isn’t mine at all. The fine belongs to the Human that the library THINKS has the books.
Library Cat looked back at the student Human. His head was bowed in embarrassment, and the palms of his hands were ever-so-slightly sweaty.
Is this fair? Library Cat wondered to himself, with a sudden twinge of guilt. Is it fair that this man is being punished in my place? Is it fair that I roam a free cat, and this Human goes to judgement in my stead?
Suddenly the librarian turned towards Library Cat, her spectacles balanced at the end of a pointed, unyielding nose. Their eyes met, but that was enough. Library Cat could take no more. The pressure was too much. He took to his heels and galloped out of the library, and towards the Meadows park, his guilt two feet behind him at all times like an autumn wasp, just as the first librarian re-entered smiling with steaming hot crispy bacon.
Recommended Reading
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.
Food consumed
Woodlice, catnip.
Mood
Guilty, fearful.
Discovery about Humans
Their rules take the pleasure out of things.
…in which our hero goes to Marchmont
Library Cat ran and ran in the pouring rain. His paws started to feel numb and cold as he galloped through watery clods of mud on the Meadows. As he ran, he looked over his shoulder at intervals towards the library. The mirage of its grey, square form bounced up and down through the drizzle with the motion of his run, getting further and further away by the second. To his left was the great hill of Arthur’s Seat, shimmering uncannily in the fog as if superimposed there by a lazy special effects editor. He felt himself panting like a dog. Without stopping he darted across a main road. A car braked just in time. Had he been any slower, or had his coat possessed a little more black than light-reflecting white, or had he not stared in the direction of the car with eyes not quite as vibrant and neon green, things would almost certainly have turned out differently. Eventually he slowed his pace, his front legs beginning to buckle. Calming down, he headed up a small alley, called “Meadow Place Lane”. Torrents of water poured out of gutters as a wind howled all around. Everywhere broken umbrellas lay in bins bent and twisted like electrocuted daddy longlegs. The air smelt dank with the fresh smell of moss and earth, which wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Shortly he found himself in a square. A large tree stood in the centre of it, bejewelled with white Christmas lights. Behind it stood a shop called Scotmid.
I’ve heard talk of this fabled place, thought Library Cat gazing up at the large sign. He sauntered over and sat just shy of the threshold, feeling pleasant wafts of warm air slip out during the moments that Humans entered and left through an automatic door. He thought about the journey he’d just made in an effort to keep alive its various details for the return trip.
There was the library, the big park, the car, and then the… what came next?
But the harder he tried to recall the details, the faster they seemed to recede back from view, like a knowing mouse in its hole when it gets the whiff of hungry cat stalking slowly close by the other side.
“Hello, cat, you look lost.”
Library Cat looked up. Above him was a bearded, gangly Human, quite possibly a student, carrying a large square box, from which he extracted and chewed large Trivial Pursuit segments of some doughy food. It smelt wonderfully of anchovies and tuna. Library Cat rubbed his side against the student, purring loudly, and was duly rewarded for his affection with a morsel of the stodgy anchovy goodness which dropped to his feet. It was the most delicious thing Library Cat had ever tasted. The Human started to move away.
Um, I think not, thought Library Cat, trotting after him, his tail held high in the air, as if the Human had suddenly morphed into the Pied Piper of cats. Presently, Human and cat turned a corner towards a large green door that opened into a stairwell.
“No, no, no, you can’t come in here. Go home!”
I’ll go home when I please, thought Library Cat, but first I’m having more of that stodgy anchovy stuff. And I’m also not altogether sure where home is at the moment.
The tenement stairwell was echoey. Beneath Library Cat’s paws were small black and white square tiles as if its Human designers had entertained a funny notion that one day other Humans might be inclined to play chess there. Higher and higher they spiralled until Library Cat felt the warm waft from an open door. He darted in.
It was a student flat. In the room straight ahead of him
a few Humans sat on the floor while drinking a clear
fluid from tiny cups which seemed to them to be disproportionately funny. From another room to his left, a big black cloud wafted into the hallway as an unspeakably loud alarm started to squeak on the ceiling, while another Human balanced dubiously on a three-legged chair to try and whack said alarm with the end of a broom. And from yet another room, whose door was propped open rather randomly by a traffic cone, there came the noise of “grrrrr”s and “arrrrgh”s (and worse) as another student jabbed away at a laptop keyboard, illuminated exclusively by the dull glow of an adjacent desk lamp.
So this is how the other side live, thought Library Cat, following after the bearded Human and the delicious hammy stuff into the main room with the giggling drinkers.
“Guys, we’ve got a new flatmate.”
“Eeeeeeeeeee! Oh my god he’s so cute, can we keep
him?”
Of course you can’t, you moron, thought Library Cat.
“Oh my God, can you pick him up?” said another, hoisting Library Cat up by the belly so that his head and back end flopped pathetically downward like a damp rugby sock.
Kindly place me back down and leave me be.
“Aw, he’s quite friendly.”
Mmmmm… no I’m not.
“He doesn’t seem to bite or claw…”
I have the power to, should I so wish.
“Careful, he’s looking a bit grumpy. I’d put him down if I were you.”
Yes, so would I “if I were you”.
“Have you fed him?”
“Well he likes this pizza…”
“Make him some dinner.”
Good thought…
“Here puss puss puss puss puss. Over HERE puss puss puss…”
Yes, I know. I’m not blind.
“Has he gottun a collar on?”
It’s “has he got a collar on” not “has he ‘gottun’ a collar on”.
“Um no don’t think so…”
“Is he that cat that hangs out in George Square? What’s he called… Library Cat?”
Honestly, you should really know who I am by now.
“Yeah it’s HIM!”
Oh God, baulked Library Cat, squirming suddenly from a clammy grasp and bolting towards the kitchen.
Out in the kitchen, the smoke had slightly subdued and a window had been flung lavishly open, sending great rolling plumes of icy air into the room. Wary from the overabundance of attention he received in the living room, Library Cat eavesdropped upon a conversation through a crack along the hinge of the door.
“He said, that she said, that he said, that he pulled her on a night out,” a boy was saying to a girl.
“Really… no way.”
“Yeah. And Tom said that Livvy said that Lawrence thinks that isn’t true?”
“Right.”
“But did he say to you anything about what she said to him?”
This conversation is unfathomable, flinched Library Cat, backing away from the door, wondering how it was possible for one sentence to have so many pronouns and not one antecedent. That dark room seemed more my kind of room. He made his way to the room with the single yellow light glowing over a desk and behind it a girl holding her head as if its contents might explode. The room was big and cold. An electric heater glowed in the corner, sending out the throat-rasping scent of burning dust. Christmas lights adorned the window, and a pin board hung, slightly skee-whiff, above the desk.
“This question just doesn’t make any sense!” the girl suddenly piped up, rising from her chair and beginning to pace the room holding a scrunched piece of paper that she gazed at in fits and starts. Finally, with one massive sigh, she cast the paper down to the floor, sending it swirling on a little loop-the-loop and coming to rest by Library Cat’s paws at the door. Then she plonked down on the bed in the darkness; a few moments later her face glowed a dullish white from the screen of her mobile phone.
Library Cat looked at the paper. It contained a quotation and a question for an academic essay:
“Governmental power intrinsically; unleashes; energises; propagates and responds to a post-Romantic crisis of the ‘self’ in Foucault’s writing.” – D. Baxter