J, stop reading my LJ!
Mar. 21st, 2008 02:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonI love the J, but his idea of catharsis is to read about Min here, and you are all too bloody lovely, and it ends in tears. Unsurprisingly, this is the same reason I am behind on some of my replies to comments, because I can only do so many before I have to step up and walk around and go outside and look intently at the roses or think of something manly. I have been reading back issues of F1, and Scouting for Boys.
All of this grief is my excuse for writing fic about my cat. Just look away, it's not sane. We are not sane people when it comes to the Min cat. Her ashes are back and we will send her off to her garden spots tomorrow and then we will be saner. Really.
All of this grief is my excuse for writing fic about my cat. Just look away, it's not sane. We are not sane people when it comes to the Min cat. Her ashes are back and we will send her off to her garden spots tomorrow and then we will be saner. Really.
Death and the Moggie
Death approved of the three women who tenderly wrapped the cat’s body in soft black linen and towels. He approved even more of the tall man who lifted the bundle gently for one last cuddle. At his feet the stumpy little tortiseshell cat looked on, outraged.
“I can’t believe they offed me!” she spluttered. “Oh yes, cry away you traitors, that’s my corpse you’re handling there.”
YOU ARE NOT TAKING THIS WELL, Death looked down at his small charge.
“Well,” she said, taking the opportunity to sit, lick her right paw, and work at that patch on the back of her head that she hadn’t been able to reach lately, “it’s come as something of a shock. One minute it’s all ‘here, Min, have some salmon’, the next it’s the vet, the needle and you. I had some serious grooming planned for this evening! If I’d known they had this up their sleeves I’d have done more than shed on her cashmere.”
I NOTICE THAT YOU ARE GROOMING NOW
“That’s hardly the point, is it? Am I on my tower? Am I being given chin scratches? Am I the proud possessor of a functional circulatory system? I think not.”
SO, YOU MAY BE WONDERING WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
“Hold your white horse, skinny. I’m not done here yet. Can you see if I got the vet? That was one of my best snaps.”
SHE APPEARS TO BE UNHURT.
“Bugger. What about Tall Man, I think I sunk one fang in.”
HE HAS A PUNCTURE, YES.
“Excellent. I’ve been wanting to get him back for all those pills.”
HE IS CRYING.
The little cat squinted up. “Oh, stupid tall man,” she muttered, and stood up to twine herself around his legs. “No point cuddling me now. I’ve gone. Save that for that calico on the back street I’ve seen you patting. How’s Small Girl?”
SHE IS CRYING, TOO
“Hopeless, these two. Offing me one minute, bawling about it the next.”
THEY KNOW YOU KNEW
The cat looked at him sharply, then resumed her twining. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I always enjoyed sitting on his computer mouse for hours, I just used to do it when he wasn't there. He had a vibrating one for a bit, that was good."
YOU WERE DYING. Death pointed out the obvious.
“Yes, but I was planning to take my own sweet time about it. I had a very dramatic final scene planned -- prostrate on the floor, tongue out, a last gargle.”
SOUNDS PAINFUL.
The cat looked up at him. “I see your point.” She resumed her grooming. “Anyway, who’s going to bring these two rats now? They are absolutely hopeless at hunting, clomping about in their huge clodhopping shoes.”
I THOUGHT THEY LIVED ON THAI TAKEAWAY.
“That’s what they want you to think, but let me tell you, I leave them the rats and when I come back, they’re gone. Coincidence? I think not. And all those jars of red curry paste in the recycling ... they never buy chicken, do they? Ooh, yes please, if you could scratch a little lower that would be perfect.”
Death sat beside the tortiseshell. I DO HAVE OTHER DUTIES THIS AFTERNOON, YOU KNOW.
“Somewhere better than a nice little garden like this? I doubt it. See that compost pile up there? Hours of warmth in that one. And the rats just come to you. Lovely spot. Those bags of cow manure? Toasty warm after a half-hour in the sun, and they’ll stay that way till well after it’s gone down. That plant over there with the felty leaves? It’s the good stuff. Roll in that and you’ll be feeling cheerful all day. I accidentally ate the last one, but Small Girl grew another one for me.”
WAS THIS YOUR SPECIAL PLACE?
The cat laughed. “Place? Don’t be silly, there are at least six places out here. There’s the compost pile, the cow poo bag, the miscanthus pot -- I’m particularly proud of my work there, exactly a cat-shaped bald spot -- the patting spot on the grey leaves, the patting spot on the herbs and then there’s the top of the hot water system. I organised those two well out here.”
SIX PLACES IS INDEED GOOD FOR A CAT.
“Well, you’re overlooking the front garden, the outdoors futon, the indoors futon, the sofa, the bed, under the bed ... she still hasn’t put her suitcase away because I’ve been napping on it.”
YOU TRAINED THEM WELL.
“It took me long enough. Do you know they wouldn’t even feed me at first, said it was unethical because I belonged to other people. Ridiculous. It’s not as though I can open a tin of salmon by myself, is it?”
AND YET YOU WERE JUST USING SOME VERY INTERESTING LANGUAGE REGARDNG THEIR ANCESTRY.
The cat looked guilty for half a second. “When you’re held down around vet types, nothing good ever happens. I have experience to support this statement.”
HE IS STILL HOLDING YOU
“Silly Tall Man.” She sat on his foot, in the time-honoured signal of kitty solidarity.
SHE ISN’T.
The cat looked up at her other person with a purr. “She’s very practical. That’s why I adopted her. You need a tough small girl when you have a gentle tall man, everyone knows that.”
SO YOU LIKED THEM?
“Like is such a strong term. She did leave me in kitty prison the other week, and last year when I had my abscess -- and she made me stay inside for a fortnight that time, with a bucket on my head.”
BUT THEY WERE YOUR PEOPLE.
The cat turned around so that the pleasantly bony fingers could scratch her back. “For as long as salmon comes in tins, a cat will require people, alas.”
I BELIEVE THEY TRIED VERY HARD TO KEEP YOU ALIVE.
The cat considered this. “I suppose they did,” she allowed. “Not like the black cat. I hated him, turning up on the roof all sweet and needy. They tried to convince me we could get along, but I wouldn’t have a bar of it. So they put him in a box, took him away, and smacked him over the head with a shovel.”
ERM …
“I was quite proud of them that week. Decided they could do with some more laptime after that, and that I should let them pat me more.”
YES, WELL, I CAN SEE THAT …
“It’s not every day people kill for you.”
Death wondered whether it would be appropriate to mention that the particular kitty heaven the black cat had been consigned to actually consisted of a rolling Edwardian home in a posher suburb. He decided not.
ARE YOU READY TO GO YET?
“Sun’s not quite left that spot beneath the big camellia, you can hold on for a tick, it’s not as though you can’t bend time and space, is it?”
I CAN TAKE YOU WITH ME TO MY HOME, WHERE THERE ARE MANY OTHER CATS TO PLAY WITH.
The tortiseshell put her ears back. “Other cats? <i>Other cats?!</i> Do you have any idea how many years it’s taken me to rid this garden of other cats? It was bad enough when the people at the back bought that kitten who grew into a ten-tonne Tessie, then the girls next door made me have to start all over again last year with their daft grey thing who sneaks in to steal my gooshy food. Bugger that, I’m staying here.”
Death looked at the cat in surprise. BUT WHY?
The tortiseshell looked up at him, with what was almost a smile. “They’ll get another cat, won’t they? And you know what we’re like with ghosts. I plan to haunt it until it’s quite deranged.”
Death looked down at her. IS THAT REALLY FAIR?
She sat back and began to groom herself contentedly. “I’ve spent eight years with these two. If there’s one thing I know they like, it’s a deranged cat. Once I’ve trained it to race up and down the hallways for no reason and to perform attack leaps on the scratching post, I’ll review my options.”
THEY WILL MISS YOU, YOU KNOW.
The cat purred. “Of course they will. Who else will sit in their towel drawer and watch them sleep?”
THAT SOUNDS NICE.
“They have marvellous towels. I think she took to buying the fluffy ones because I liked them. And he always had a good laugh out of seeing my ears over the lip of the drawer.”
Death made a sound that could, in someone less grim, have been mistaken for a chuckle.
The cat suddenly crouched low, and looked intently about four feet past Death. A rat had poked its nose out from behind the compost heap and was plotting a quick escape past the distracted humans, out under the fence towards the railway. The cat stayed hunched to the ground until the rat ran close past her, then she leapt four feet vertically into the air and came down with her paws on its neck. They went straight through.
“Bugger!” said the cat.
The rat heard something spectral in its ear, looked up and saw Death. He caught his breath sharply, tilted to one side and fell, prone, to the parma violets.
A very small figure cloaked in a cowled robe appeared and cut away the rat’s soul. It looked up at the cat and gave a short wave, before disappearing with a SQUEAK.
Death looked down at the cat. YOU KNOW HIM?
She licked her paws. “I’ve put some business his way over the years.” She stretched out and rolled on her back. “I’ll say this for the non-corporeal, it’s the most limber I’ve felt in years. I might go and sit on the lintel over the front door.”
HOW DO YOU GET UP THERE?
She looked smug. “Climb the screen door. The getting down’s a bit tricky, though. I decided to keep these two when they didn’t laugh at my efforts there.”
Death looked at his timer. I REALLY MUST BE GOING. ARE YOU COMING?
The cat looked up at him, then looked around at her garden and the people in it. “I think not,” she replied. “I can hardly leave them with just fleas.”
THEY WON’T SEE YOU, he told her gently.
“I’ll see them. And besides, I’ll finally be able to give that fat bastard cat from over the back the fright of its life.”
Death reached down and scratched the small cat’s chin. LET ME KNOW IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND.
She purred for him, then watched as he rode away on the horse that had, frankly, been far too large for her garden and very reticent in providing any fertiliser. Her people were still holding her, and each other. She bunted their legs, then went to the miscanthus, to get some more snoozing in before her bare patch began to grow over.
The sun had left the garden now, but there was still time for grooming. And she could still taste the salmon in her mouth.
Death approved of the three women who tenderly wrapped the cat’s body in soft black linen and towels. He approved even more of the tall man who lifted the bundle gently for one last cuddle. At his feet the stumpy little tortiseshell cat looked on, outraged.
“I can’t believe they offed me!” she spluttered. “Oh yes, cry away you traitors, that’s my corpse you’re handling there.”
YOU ARE NOT TAKING THIS WELL, Death looked down at his small charge.
“Well,” she said, taking the opportunity to sit, lick her right paw, and work at that patch on the back of her head that she hadn’t been able to reach lately, “it’s come as something of a shock. One minute it’s all ‘here, Min, have some salmon’, the next it’s the vet, the needle and you. I had some serious grooming planned for this evening! If I’d known they had this up their sleeves I’d have done more than shed on her cashmere.”
I NOTICE THAT YOU ARE GROOMING NOW
“That’s hardly the point, is it? Am I on my tower? Am I being given chin scratches? Am I the proud possessor of a functional circulatory system? I think not.”
SO, YOU MAY BE WONDERING WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
“Hold your white horse, skinny. I’m not done here yet. Can you see if I got the vet? That was one of my best snaps.”
SHE APPEARS TO BE UNHURT.
“Bugger. What about Tall Man, I think I sunk one fang in.”
HE HAS A PUNCTURE, YES.
“Excellent. I’ve been wanting to get him back for all those pills.”
HE IS CRYING.
The little cat squinted up. “Oh, stupid tall man,” she muttered, and stood up to twine herself around his legs. “No point cuddling me now. I’ve gone. Save that for that calico on the back street I’ve seen you patting. How’s Small Girl?”
SHE IS CRYING, TOO
“Hopeless, these two. Offing me one minute, bawling about it the next.”
THEY KNOW YOU KNEW
The cat looked at him sharply, then resumed her twining. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I always enjoyed sitting on his computer mouse for hours, I just used to do it when he wasn't there. He had a vibrating one for a bit, that was good."
YOU WERE DYING. Death pointed out the obvious.
“Yes, but I was planning to take my own sweet time about it. I had a very dramatic final scene planned -- prostrate on the floor, tongue out, a last gargle.”
SOUNDS PAINFUL.
The cat looked up at him. “I see your point.” She resumed her grooming. “Anyway, who’s going to bring these two rats now? They are absolutely hopeless at hunting, clomping about in their huge clodhopping shoes.”
I THOUGHT THEY LIVED ON THAI TAKEAWAY.
“That’s what they want you to think, but let me tell you, I leave them the rats and when I come back, they’re gone. Coincidence? I think not. And all those jars of red curry paste in the recycling ... they never buy chicken, do they? Ooh, yes please, if you could scratch a little lower that would be perfect.”
Death sat beside the tortiseshell. I DO HAVE OTHER DUTIES THIS AFTERNOON, YOU KNOW.
“Somewhere better than a nice little garden like this? I doubt it. See that compost pile up there? Hours of warmth in that one. And the rats just come to you. Lovely spot. Those bags of cow manure? Toasty warm after a half-hour in the sun, and they’ll stay that way till well after it’s gone down. That plant over there with the felty leaves? It’s the good stuff. Roll in that and you’ll be feeling cheerful all day. I accidentally ate the last one, but Small Girl grew another one for me.”
WAS THIS YOUR SPECIAL PLACE?
The cat laughed. “Place? Don’t be silly, there are at least six places out here. There’s the compost pile, the cow poo bag, the miscanthus pot -- I’m particularly proud of my work there, exactly a cat-shaped bald spot -- the patting spot on the grey leaves, the patting spot on the herbs and then there’s the top of the hot water system. I organised those two well out here.”
SIX PLACES IS INDEED GOOD FOR A CAT.
“Well, you’re overlooking the front garden, the outdoors futon, the indoors futon, the sofa, the bed, under the bed ... she still hasn’t put her suitcase away because I’ve been napping on it.”
YOU TRAINED THEM WELL.
“It took me long enough. Do you know they wouldn’t even feed me at first, said it was unethical because I belonged to other people. Ridiculous. It’s not as though I can open a tin of salmon by myself, is it?”
AND YET YOU WERE JUST USING SOME VERY INTERESTING LANGUAGE REGARDNG THEIR ANCESTRY.
The cat looked guilty for half a second. “When you’re held down around vet types, nothing good ever happens. I have experience to support this statement.”
HE IS STILL HOLDING YOU
“Silly Tall Man.” She sat on his foot, in the time-honoured signal of kitty solidarity.
SHE ISN’T.
The cat looked up at her other person with a purr. “She’s very practical. That’s why I adopted her. You need a tough small girl when you have a gentle tall man, everyone knows that.”
SO YOU LIKED THEM?
“Like is such a strong term. She did leave me in kitty prison the other week, and last year when I had my abscess -- and she made me stay inside for a fortnight that time, with a bucket on my head.”
BUT THEY WERE YOUR PEOPLE.
The cat turned around so that the pleasantly bony fingers could scratch her back. “For as long as salmon comes in tins, a cat will require people, alas.”
I BELIEVE THEY TRIED VERY HARD TO KEEP YOU ALIVE.
The cat considered this. “I suppose they did,” she allowed. “Not like the black cat. I hated him, turning up on the roof all sweet and needy. They tried to convince me we could get along, but I wouldn’t have a bar of it. So they put him in a box, took him away, and smacked him over the head with a shovel.”
ERM …
“I was quite proud of them that week. Decided they could do with some more laptime after that, and that I should let them pat me more.”
YES, WELL, I CAN SEE THAT …
“It’s not every day people kill for you.”
Death wondered whether it would be appropriate to mention that the particular kitty heaven the black cat had been consigned to actually consisted of a rolling Edwardian home in a posher suburb. He decided not.
ARE YOU READY TO GO YET?
“Sun’s not quite left that spot beneath the big camellia, you can hold on for a tick, it’s not as though you can’t bend time and space, is it?”
I CAN TAKE YOU WITH ME TO MY HOME, WHERE THERE ARE MANY OTHER CATS TO PLAY WITH.
The tortiseshell put her ears back. “Other cats? <i>Other cats?!</i> Do you have any idea how many years it’s taken me to rid this garden of other cats? It was bad enough when the people at the back bought that kitten who grew into a ten-tonne Tessie, then the girls next door made me have to start all over again last year with their daft grey thing who sneaks in to steal my gooshy food. Bugger that, I’m staying here.”
Death looked at the cat in surprise. BUT WHY?
The tortiseshell looked up at him, with what was almost a smile. “They’ll get another cat, won’t they? And you know what we’re like with ghosts. I plan to haunt it until it’s quite deranged.”
Death looked down at her. IS THAT REALLY FAIR?
She sat back and began to groom herself contentedly. “I’ve spent eight years with these two. If there’s one thing I know they like, it’s a deranged cat. Once I’ve trained it to race up and down the hallways for no reason and to perform attack leaps on the scratching post, I’ll review my options.”
THEY WILL MISS YOU, YOU KNOW.
The cat purred. “Of course they will. Who else will sit in their towel drawer and watch them sleep?”
THAT SOUNDS NICE.
“They have marvellous towels. I think she took to buying the fluffy ones because I liked them. And he always had a good laugh out of seeing my ears over the lip of the drawer.”
Death made a sound that could, in someone less grim, have been mistaken for a chuckle.
The cat suddenly crouched low, and looked intently about four feet past Death. A rat had poked its nose out from behind the compost heap and was plotting a quick escape past the distracted humans, out under the fence towards the railway. The cat stayed hunched to the ground until the rat ran close past her, then she leapt four feet vertically into the air and came down with her paws on its neck. They went straight through.
“Bugger!” said the cat.
The rat heard something spectral in its ear, looked up and saw Death. He caught his breath sharply, tilted to one side and fell, prone, to the parma violets.
A very small figure cloaked in a cowled robe appeared and cut away the rat’s soul. It looked up at the cat and gave a short wave, before disappearing with a SQUEAK.
Death looked down at the cat. YOU KNOW HIM?
She licked her paws. “I’ve put some business his way over the years.” She stretched out and rolled on her back. “I’ll say this for the non-corporeal, it’s the most limber I’ve felt in years. I might go and sit on the lintel over the front door.”
HOW DO YOU GET UP THERE?
She looked smug. “Climb the screen door. The getting down’s a bit tricky, though. I decided to keep these two when they didn’t laugh at my efforts there.”
Death looked at his timer. I REALLY MUST BE GOING. ARE YOU COMING?
The cat looked up at him, then looked around at her garden and the people in it. “I think not,” she replied. “I can hardly leave them with just fleas.”
THEY WON’T SEE YOU, he told her gently.
“I’ll see them. And besides, I’ll finally be able to give that fat bastard cat from over the back the fright of its life.”
Death reached down and scratched the small cat’s chin. LET ME KNOW IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND.
She purred for him, then watched as he rode away on the horse that had, frankly, been far too large for her garden and very reticent in providing any fertiliser. Her people were still holding her, and each other. She bunted their legs, then went to the miscanthus, to get some more snoozing in before her bare patch began to grow over.
The sun had left the garden now, but there was still time for grooming. And she could still taste the salmon in her mouth.
