It is late; or rather ir is too early. It is 3am on a Tuesday, not Wednesday, morning* and I cannot sleep. The flat is silent as death, mirroring the streets outside of the window, only the soft, gentle whirring of the computer's fan interrupts the quietude of the dark. Late night revellers, with their raucous and inebriated laughter, are a feature of the weekend only. All are now safely tucked up in their cots, deep in slumber, until the alarm bell rings; the clarion which bids them to their work, the muezzin's call to the faithful.
A plaintive cry of the banshee fades into the distance, an ambulance, speeding upon the now empty roads and rushing yet one more heart attack to Accident and Emergency, punctuates the eerie silence; a token of the memories that crash on tireless waves, the lifeguards whom the winter saves.** However, silence once more descends and wraps its amniotic caul around the gloom. A loose floorboard creaks outside the bedroom door and the soft, gentle tap of half-sheathed claws makes its slow and stately progress along the narrow hallway of polished pine to my study door.
I turn in my chair and the silhouette of a cat, framed in the dim moonlight which courses through the fanlight above the front door, can be seen, perched on his haunches. As he moves towards me, I can see his white jaw, his breast and his forelegs reflecting the light from my computer screen; all else is shrouded in deepest black. He is purring loudly but whether in satisfaction of a sleep well slept or in anticipation of the cosy warmth of my lap, I cannot say. He moves without a sound between my legs, rubbing his cheeks against my calves; I feel the heat of his body through the dense, silky fur. He caresses the ejected CD tray of the computer beneath my desk with his ears and scarce bats an eyelid as the tray returns to its home inside of the case; he has become accustomed to this sudden curtailment of his small pleasure to which he pays no mind and merely resumes his courtly dance through my legs before settling in front of the radiator by my feet.
I open the book which is lying at the side of the desk. 'The complete stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe'. Eager to catch a glimpse of the words, the cat alights with a single bound upon my outstretched thighs as I read the words in a voiceless whisper; "And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear? - weep now or never more! See! on you drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!" As if to commiserate with my soundless words, he rubs his head against my chest and clutches at my shirt with his now unguarded talons, digging them into the flesh through the fabric. I tickle his ears, he responds in seeming ecstasy, drawing blood; tiny. carmine spots on white linen, 'dots' on stolen blotting paper.
As 'Lenore' transforms into 'The Raven' and thence into 'Ulalime' with those same soundless syllables, he leaves my lap in search of such food as may still be found in his bowl. O, to be a cat now that summer is here. A life spent in cosy slumber, perched on the pillow with the sunlight streaming through the open window, a sleep broken only by a brief period to eat, the better to get fat, and an even briefer period to defecate. O, to be a cat with no memories of a love departed, no remembrance of the empty clothes that now drape and fall on empty chairs.***
I return the book to its temporary resting place at the side of the desk and listen to the gentle rustling of the kibble in the bowl as he chases the few remaining morsels around the china dish with his tongue, interspersed by his delicate mastication as he chases down and corners his quarry. He returns after a few brief minutes, his claws tap, tap, tapping along his route from kitchen to study. He nestles across my feet, eager for my toes to work their gavotte along his flank, and he purrs loudly, punctuating each intake of breath with a soft warble, as though in imitation of a bird only dreamt of.
I gaze at the screen before me, blinding white dotted with black; symbols which may be words or but a mere distillation, an abstraction, of ideas,, of rage, of beauty. Joan Miró sublimated the beauty of the oceans with such abstract symbols, commonplace, strictly linear arabesques, in his art and gave a deeper meaning than words might tell of the power of the waves to overwhelm all before them. It is now 6.00am. As I gaze at the ever deepening mystery before me, a tangle of symbols, all things and none, I can hear it. Soft yet distinct amidst the silence of the burgeoning dawn, a sound like no other,
A floorboard creaks outside the bedroom door.
* A reference, for those too young to remember, to Simon and Garfunkel's first LP, 'Wednesday morning, 3AM'
** A almost direct steal from 'The family and the fishing net' by Peter Gabriel, a song about the ritual of marriage. It does not fit the context but I like the line; just call it being obtuse....and pretentious!
*** Another direct steal, this time from Don McLean's 'Empty chairs'; one of the few songs which can make me cry....every time!
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