Alex Howard - Library Cat

Trust you? Mmmm… agreeable ear-tickle… mmm…

“There, there. Oh no, Library Cat, what have you done with your Cone?”

Run!

Library Cat bolted between the fridge and the boiler. As the evening drew on, he gave himself a good preen. He was sweaty and matted, and it does a thinking cat’s pride no good when he or she looks like they’ve been dragged up from the Union Canal. He thought about the day with delicious detachment.

I guess when someone says things aren’t right, you have to trust them, even if it does hurt, and everyone around you does seem mad , he thought, as he crossed his paws and dozed with the warm, blue glow of the boiler flickering next to him.

Recommended Reading

‘Ambulances’ by Philip Larkin.

Food consumed

1 cat treat, 2 tiny bits of plastic (from Cone of Shame).

Mood

Fearful (morning), humiliated (early afternoon), touched (early evening), emboldened (late evening).

Discovery about Humans

They sometimes shield the truth for fear of being judged.

Several days had passed since Library Cat chewed himself free of the Cone of Shame, and he had settled quite comfortably back into his usual routine. Morning: rise at 9.30 am, doze for an hour. Mid-Morning: breakfast, head to turquoise chair for snooze. Early Afternoon: disappear to the Towsery for reading. Early evening: hunting, supper and bed.

This particular morning, Library Cat had roused from his slumber and spent a good half an hour simply admiring the piles of books in his bedroom in the chaplaincy. They scattered around him almost as far as the eye could see, and when his Human came down to change his food, he often took some time to negotiate carefully between the various piles, slurping his fresh bowl of water in the process. Some piles were only a couple of books deep, others towered haphazardly up like a three-year-old’s early attempts at civil engineering, and seen together at their various heights, they seemed to resemble the dancing bars of a graphics equaliser on a nineties stereo system, each one a different colour and height, shimmying up and down as if to some hidden symphony of knowledge.

I really should sort through them , thought Library Cat, yawning.

Although Library Cat conducted most of his reading in the Towsery itself (if nothing else, the Towsery was a constant source of warmth), there was sometimes nothing better than smelling a book, sitting with a book, and – indeed – reading a book in the comfort of your own bed. The street lamp from the square would glimmer in through the window, and by his radiator-heated sleeping and reading station, Library Cat could devour several books in one evening, purring dulcetly over the half-lit pages in sublime pleasure. And so, by a certain magic stealth, Library Cat had obtained transit of numerous books from the library back to his own bedroom. Over the years their numbers increased as his reading tastes diversified, leading him to forget how long he’d had each one of them. Little did he grieve over the countless students who were, the whole time, being wrongly accused of stealing library books after he had intercepted them halfway along the Returns conveyor belt, biffing them off with his pernicious paw. Indeed, when he settled down to The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens of an evening, he hardly twitched a whisker at the thought that Matriculation Number S0791986 had been frozen and attached with several stratospheric fines, and that a High Court Order had been issued against a certain Mr Andrew Butterfield of Flat 2/2 Marchmont Crescent, who spent evenings pacing his room with trembling hands, and whose friends said he’d “developed a persecution complex of late”. No. Library Cat was blissfully ignorant of such things, and nor is it in the nature of a thinking cat – nor any cat for that matter – to spend valuable reading and sleeping time delving into the minutiae of a library’s lending policy.

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.