Catland - a humorous fantasy

Chapter Three: Fate Takes a Hand

Greg was asleep—at long last—and was dreaming that he was pretending to be asleep, in order to fool his Machiavellian cat, who was also pretending to be asleep, which was in fact what both of them did every night, but it was also what Greg was dreaming about when he was really asleep, which was itself a very worrying sign, when suddenly—

Greg was awake.

He didn't know why he was awake. But he was definitely awake—wide awake—and his heart was pounding. It was not the dream that had done it. Something had happened. He had heard something in the house.

And then he heard it again.

It was a crashing scrape—a ringing metallic noise—as if someone were doing a very poor job of extricating a fork from the silver drawer.

Of course, Greg didn't have a silver drawer. Greg had one fork, one knife, and one very shabby spoon. All three of them lived in the sink, because Greg kept meaning to wash them, but he could never quite see the point of washing them, so he would just take them out of the sink and eat with them again whenever it was time to eat something, and then return them to the sink at the end of the meal. It wasn't a sophisticated system, but it worked for him.

So what the hell was banging around down there?

Greg slid out of bed and advanced cautiously to his bedroom door. He peered out into the hallway. The hallway was just a hallway—blank and innocent and boring. The sounds were a bit louder now. They were definitely coming from downstairs.

Very slowly Greg inched his way down the hall. When he reached the stairs, he kept his feet close to the bannister, because the steps were less creaky where they met the wooden supports. Halfway down he got a quick glimpse into the kitchen, which was where the noises seemed to originate, but all he could see was a dark blur that dashed out from one side of the doorway and disappeared on the other side.

Reaching the ground floor, Greg crept along the wall towards the kitchen door. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his mouth felt unbelievably dry. The clashing sounds had grown much louder, but they were still distinctly small and tinny; they made no dent on the deep silence of the night outside. Greg tried to imagine what he might find when he looked into the kitchen, but he found that his imagination was paralyzed. All he could do was continue to creep along, like a burglar in his own house, and pray that his beating heart was not as loud as it sounded.

He reached the door. He stole one eye around the doorjamb. He could see small dark forms dancing about on the floor, but they meant nothing to him, so, with a trembling hand, he switched on the light.

And that was the moment when everything changed.

There are moments in your life when everything you believe you know about the world is violently, impudently contradicted. It happens to everyone. Think about when you were a baby, and you were delighted beyond all measure by the magical game of "peekaboo." An adult would conceal him or herself behind his or her hands—from your point of view, disappearing utterly—and then suddenly remove the obstruction, while simultaneously crying "Peekaboo!" in a voice of shrill, manufactured delight. You would giggle uncontrollably, pleased beyond measure by this miraculous performance, and then the process would be repeated, often many times over, while any other adults who happened to be present surreptitiously broke out the brandy. Now imagine your chagrin on the day you realized—through a cruel new concept called "object permanence"—that the adults were not disappearing at all, but only treacherously concealing themselves from your perception—exploiting your ontological naiveté in a particularly crude and insensitive way, and all the while mocking you by repeating a nonsense phrase which would have no application in your future life, while their co-conspirators celebrated your humiliation with spirited libations. You probably don't remember this day—presumably because you suppressed it as being too painful to live with—but take my word for it, it was pretty awful, and it is probably the reason you have never been able to love or trust anybody since.