Alex Howard - Library Cat

Library Cat slowed his pace and looked down at his paws advancing on the pavement. Left paw, Right paw, Black leg, White Leg, Left paw, Right paw, Black leg, White Leg . New thoughts were now coming into his mind. Weird thoughts. Strange thoughts…

Am I those things?

…grey thoughts, bitter thoughts; a whole fog of putrid, multi-coloured thoughts that twisted inexorably through his brain like fairy light cabling. He turned off Middle Meadow Walk towards George Square, the nettles around its perimeters seeming to rise up and grab the air like eerie sea anemones. He had never seen them in that way before, but now felt like he couldn’t see them in any other way. They frightened him. Things seemed out of focus.

And still the temptation to chase his tail…

Don’t be silly, Library Cat. You know it’s futile and would make things worse .

And then it was upon him. An odd smell met his nostrils, cadaverous and brown and heavy as lead. It struck Library Cat strange that a smell could be heavy and brown, but this smell was undoubtedly both these things. So nauseating was the smell that a mere wisp of it across his nostrils, disturbing the otherwise chill air, sent a deep heat into him, making him gag.

And then he saw it.

Between where he stood and the warm refuge of the library was the Black Dog. It had caught Library Cat’s scent.

Library Cat felt his pupils widen and his back arch as an unspeakable terror shot through his bones. His gaze locked onto the Black Dog, snapping only right and left when he was brave enough to look for a tree to climb, or a something to bolt beneath. There was nothing. All at once the Black Dog’s head turned. In the cold air, Library Cat saw two tiny yellow eyes, as small as pinpricks, that seemed to strobe bluey-yellow like tiny fusing light bulbs. The fur was smarmed with what seemed like grease, twisting it in all directions – sometimes up in a tuft, sometimes flat along its back, and sometimes back on itself. It had no collar and Library Cat could not tell its breed. In fact it seemed difficult to suggest it had any breed in it at all, crossed or otherwise. There was something not-of-this-earth about the Black Dog.

At that moment, the Black Dog neared towards him, its back arched ready for combat. Its jowls drawled with grey saliva that bounced up and down as it panted. Directly above it, a set of drab clouds began racing over a darkening sky like nondescript items on a speeding conveyor belt. The eyes flashed wildly, bluer and more electrical as the distance between cat and dog closed. Its stench was indescribable. Finally Library Cat took a deep breath, opened his mouth, shut his eyes and let out a long sibilant hiss, as long and as loud and as threatening as he could possibly muster from his tiny cat-lungs.

And then silence. Everything except the grey clouds that scudded overhead became colourless and still. A kind of locked-in horror.

Library Cat opened his eyes. The Black Dog had fled.

Where did it go? Did I imagine it?

Ahead of Library Cat was a clear path towards the library. A car rumbled across the cobbles, and several satchelled Humans flitted in and out of buildings. A girl came over to stroke him.

“Library Cat, there’s no need to look so scared!”

The girl had blonde ringlets and weaved her fingers tenderly between his fur. She smelt sweet like oranges. Library Cat looked up at her eyes. They seemed empathetic. Despite his remoteness, Library Cat felt grateful for the company.

A little while later, he slipped away from the Human’s touch and into the library.

Sleep washed over him before his head even hit his turquoise chair.

Library Cat was still in his chair. It was difficult to say how long. The Black Dog had returned to him in a few sifting dreams but it hadn’t lunged at him, and for this Library Cat was a little relieved. His mood was a little better; he felt rested. The mysterious chamber in his brain had magically begun refilling with the magic elixir of wellbeing. He wasn’t fully restored, but he was on the mend. He still felt scared, and irritable, and jealous and angry, but that didn’t matter quite so much, if the wellbeing elixir was refilling. With no wellbeing elixir these emotions were unpalatable and overwhelming like squash concentrate. When diluted in the elixir, however, they turned into little threads of colour that swept through the clear water of his mind making marvellous patterns in their myriad colours. They made up his character.

I still don’t want to go outside again yet. I want to make sure the dog’s gone – away from George Square, away from Edinburgh. Oh… hello Humans…

All of a sudden, a large clutch of students had gathered around Library Cat. Realising he’d spent a long time in the library and had not returned home for quite some time, they began to get worried for him. So much so, in fact, that they had even alerted something called a “Tabloid Newspaper” – a dubious compilation of Human writings – that he had run away.

Well I’m here and I’m here to stay , thought Library Cat, craning his head forward like a plank, his eyes gummed shut, purring softly. He felt touched by the concern.

Even more touching, though, was the sudden swathe of concerned correspondences Library Cat received from his cousins. Biblio Chat, for one, had risen out of his lofty contemplative remove and shown an uncharacteristic amount of concern for his Scottish cousin; said he should try thinking through these issues with another cat… un chat thérapeutique et professionnel … who may be able to help. Maybe the spectre of the Black Dog originated in kittenhood? Saaf Landan Tom’s advice was of a rather different vein: “My cat flap’s always open mate. If you need to cotch at mine, yeah? Ya wiv me, bruv, yeah? It’ll pass, mate, we’ll get you out on da alley again in no time.”

Tom’s response was brave. Library Cat had, after all, lashed out at his cousin the month before, causing him to flee, even though Tom had never meant to harm by stealing his food, and even though he could have retaliated and made short work of his black and white cousin if he’d wished. And yet Tom, with a perturbed swish of his great bushy ginger tail, and a few licks of his bloody paw, had clearly put the matter behind him, and forgiven his cousin for swiping. That took a lot. That took being the bigger cat…

Saaf Landan Tom had then suggested – meaning well, of course – that his cousin procure some of the potent catnip offered by the alley cats of Tollcross in exchange for certain “literatures”. Though grateful, Library Cat was sceptical of the advice after a bad experience that once resulted in a bout of torturous rodent-based hallucinations. One could never trust the Tollcross Nip.

Library Cat thought it curious how, despite remaining sceptical about the advice offered by his cousins, he derived a definite warmth and reassurance from it nevertheless. And Saaf Landan Tom talked about feelings… Saaf Landan Tom never talked about feelings.

I should stop sending my cousins to Coventry , Library Cat suddenly thought, feeling a little ashamed. What’s more, if I send them to Coventry, they end up sending me to Coventry, and that defeats the point. Because we end up being in Coventry together. And surely the last place two cats would want to be, whether they get on or not, is Coventry .

At times like this, Library Cat wondered whether it might’ve been easier if he hadn’t been born a thinking cat – if he’d never had the warm, heady nirvana-pleasures of the Towsery, or the densely punctuated lines of Friedrich Nietzsche to send bright, happy thoughts across the pitchfork entrails of his synapses. He thought of all those cats who were not thinking cats. Right now they were all over Scotland: double-helixing their way between their Humans’ legs, neck craned up at a chicken titbit; offering purrs indiscriminately to whomever stopped to stroke them; chasing bits of string entirely at the whim of Human masters; trying to scream down their own reflection in long, thin IKEA mirrors…