Dark Thoughts from Somewhere in Space

Dark Thoughts from Somewhere in Space1

One night last week I happened to notice my old tomcat, Rosebud, napping on the floor. He had rolled over all the way onto his back, with one rabbity hind foot pointing straight up in the air and both forepaws flopping on his chest. He had taken to sleeping in this position only recently, and the resemblance to a chubby toddler who has nodded off at play gave him a remarkable air of humanity.2

At that moment, the image was so striking that it caused certain fallow conjectures idling about my psyche to spring into waking consciousness, and to unite, as suddenly, in an entirely new postulate. The quality of this mental shift was such that my daughter, sleeping in the next room, sighed deeply at the moment of my inspiration but did not awaken. She has subsequently expressed no memory of the incident, nor have I attempted to relate to her any sense of my experience. As there are no other witnesses, I trust you will keep secret this revelation, at least for now.3

What ignited this radical shift in awareness was the convergence of several hypotheses relating to the quality of matter. I had realized, over the past decade or so, that several physicists and a number of comic writers have proposed an esoteric affinity of matter among diverse bodies, with the consequence that those in close proximity begin to exchange molecules over time.4

Rosebud had often spent the entire afternoon on my lap, and most mornings had hopped onto my bed prior to the alarm's clamor, resting his chin on the curve of my shoulder. I supposed he could have absorbed a profusion of my molecules over the years of our association. Perhaps his new choice of sleeping posture was indicative of an incipient humanity.5

“Now really,” you say, “what possible reference could you offer for the supposition that a cat absorbs your molecules as he sits on your lap?”6

“For starters,” I reply, “both Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and O’Brien’s Man-into-Bicycle Proposition assert the interpenetration of seemingly discrete phenomena.”7

“Neither of them mention cats.”8

“Nonetheless, there is and isn't Shroedinger's cat, and anyhow, the potential for analogy is there...”9

“And you can’t equate a physicist with a comic writer,” you scoff, turning your attention inward, reminding yourself of a dental appointment on Thursday.10

“With certain qualifications, I can,” I mumble, retreating into silence to connect the dots of my formulation. Both professions freely disseminate ideas that make little sense in our world of food and furniture. The physicist habitually makes wild assertions; for example, this whole business of molecules--how many have you actually seen? And quarks, well, I rest my case, Mr. Finnegan! Nonetheless, the physicist goes on justifying existence in his obscure cant; and when we nod a time or two, to indicate that we’ve recognized some word other than “the” or “and,” he gives us that superior smile and returns to his calculations. It’s one of those emperor’s clothes situations. No one wants to be the first to say “Duh?”11

The major difference between him and the writer is that physics is not as funny as a good comic novel. While the scientist hypnotizes us into acceptance by the very dullness of his explanations, the writer flings forth his improbable concepts, as if they were no matter at all, and proceeds about his tale without a backward glance. “Man-into-bicycle,” “Chrono-synclastic infundibulum,” “the ouragan of spaces,”--they’re all out there, and who knows what might develop from any one of them? Simple beings that we are, we just snatch up those notions like beads flung at Mardi Gras and take them home to decorate our psyches.12

These writers are sly. When an assertion is challenged, the writer is prepared with an innocuous response, a technique also favored by rock-and-roll bands. Take, for example, Procol Harum. When asked what esoteric meaning lay behind their unusual name, the group responded that there was no mystery to it. They had named the band for a member’s cat. Typically, no one thought to ask why the cat was named Procol Harum. My no. Just snatching those baubles.13

“Named for the cat--haha.”14

“No mystery at all.”15

Having dispersed their concepts to sprout in our--usually untended--mental gardens, these instigators have a way of slipping into hiding, and eventually they pass away without giving us the opportunity to question their propositions. Thus, they have the last laugh.16

You, of course, are not included in that previous generalization of mental delinquency. I’m well aware of the efforts you have made to weed out false premises and get your petunias in a row. Who knows where ideas come from, anyhow? Perhaps they are generated in the black holes at the edge of the universe and whirled into our solar system by some Vonnegutian space/time funnel. How are we to tell whether some new sprout is the long-awaited cure for malapropism or the mental equivalent of the water hyacinth? There is never anyone to ask.17

I decided to research the premise of feline molecular transposition. Mainly, I attempted to determine whether any humanization had taken place in Rosebud’s intelligence. Alas, a suggestion that he use the bathroom for a toilet instead of the garden met with no glimmer of receptivity. Nor did he exhibit any comprehension of the most elementary sign language. Even a monkey can do that much. Of course, to be objective, I had to admit the possibility that my cat simply had no interest in those activities.18

I confess that the attempt at feline potty training had a precedent in my childhood. At the age of eight, I had taken some pains to train our tomcat to use the toilet by setting him repeatedly on the seat and urging him to “go.” I’d believed this would be a service to the cat as well as to the family, since there would be no further need to put him out in the cold at night, or occasion to clean after his mistakes. On reflection, I could see this situation as the logical outcome of my poor diligence in cleaning the litter box, a task I did not enjoy. However, this youthful belief in my own altruism had yet to be challenged. As with Rosebud, I had seen no immediate result from my efforts.19

Those lessons were not the least on my mind as I’d sat eating dinner with my family one night. Mother and Father were seated at the ends of the table, while my little brother sat across from me, kicking his feet and occasionally catching my shin.20

“Quit it!” I hissed, scooping my peas into the butter puddle in my mashed potatoes as a prelude to burying them altogether. I glanced around the table to assure myself that I would not be chided for playing with my food. From the lavatory next to the dining room, where the door stood slightly ajar and in clear sight of the table, there had come the unmistakable sound of someone making water, and I don’t mean pouring tea.21

Four faces had silently queried, counted heads--against the evidence of our senses--to assure the presence of the whole family. We had no guests. Abruptly, Father had jumped up and taken two giant steps to the lavatory door.22

“Scram!” he shouted, as a terrified cat ducked around the corner and out of sight. Father turned back toward the dining room with a “Young Lady, what is the meaning of this?”23

I wondered how he had determined that I was responsible--it could have been a spontaneous decision on the cat’s part, as I’d construed it.24

“Now he won’t have to go out nights...” I peered up at my father, attempting a smile while keeping my fingers laced over my plate.25

“I have no intention of sharing a commode with a cat,” he had rumbled, abandoning the dining room for his pipe in the library.26

I’d said nothing, tunneling into the side of my potato mound until the peas and butter spilled out like unstrung beads. Later, I heard Dad repeat to Mom that he’d be damned if he would share a bathroom with a cat. I felt puzzled at this unexpected intolerance on my father’s part. I would certainly rather share the commode than clean a mess off the carpet.27

After dinner, I had sought out the cat and told him how proud I was, and he’d continued to use the lavatory, while Dad had retreated to the bathroom on the second floor. But that was many cats ago.28

Now, I was sure Rosebud could do anything as well as that old cat, so I had concluded that his refusal only showed a human-like resistance to coercion. As for his emotional development, I had observed some behavior that might indicate a certain burgeoning humanity. Recently he had been allowing, even encouraging, his mother Simone to steal the prized morsels of canned food from his tray. I tried to prevent this by moving his portion as far from her as possible, but he would just nudge the food back to her. Simone would wait until I relaxed my vigilance, then snatch without ceremony. She had never been a lap-sitter, and her predatory instincts remained unmodified.29

Rosebud was the larger and stronger of the two cats, and his preference for canned food was undeniable. Only a superfeline civility seemed to explain his behavior. While not conclusive in itself, surely this was evidence.30

Whatever their relative human content, both Simone and Rosebud had long since established themselves in my household as models of feline decorum, graciously accommodating their schedules to my own. Real trouble, I was to discover, arrives with the pets of one’s children.31

Two months earlier, my son had called me, from his apartment down the street. His recent and somewhat reluctant essay at independence had left me with only a pre-teen daughter at home, the last of my brood. He’d queried, in a tone of innocence I should have suspected immediately, “Mom, would you be happy if I got a better job?”32

“Yes, certainly,” I’d pounced upon his ambivalence. After all, he was past twenty.33

“It’s in England.”34

“Good--all the better--see the world, and all...”35

“You’re sure I should go?”36

“Yes, well, fairly sure. Why not?”37

“I can’t take my cat.”38

“Never mind the cat. I mean….” The trap had been sprung before I saw it coming. I couldn’t expect a young man to just toss out his cat. Who knows how many familial molecules had already mingled in its hide? “I suppose I could keep it for you,” I heard myself saying.39

“It’s a really great cat, Mom.”40

“Aren’t they all?”41

“He’s really well trained.”42

Skywacker was well trained in his own way. His two tricks were to open cupboards with his paws and to use the litter-box at 3 a.m. His cupboard-opening aptitude was all right; nothing on my shelves was troubled much by his presence. The litter-box was a problem from the start. Simone and Rosebud had used the garden without incident for most of their lives, avoiding the necessity for establishing the traditional pan of granules in my tiny home.43

After weeks of encouragement, I’d finally persuaded Skywacker to participate in the relative comforts of the garden. However, I was not able to break him of the 3 a.m. impulse, and often staggered out of a deep sleep to unlatch the door while he made frantic cat circles around the living room rug.44

Still contemplating the molecular dichotomy of human and cat, I was visited in a dream one night by the writer Karl Vragnet. He had shaved off his mustache, thereby resolving one mystery, at least. His face looked too small without it, almost apologetic. I could not stand on ceremony with this bare-faced fiction writer.45

“I hadn’t really expected you, Karl.”46

“You sound disappointed.”47

“Well, I am. I was hoping for someone more enigmatic--Joyce or Sartre, perhaps.”48

“Why would they care to meet you?”49

“It’s my dream, after all.”50

“There’s that wonderful American possessiveness.”51

Surely he meant that sarcastically, but I had to consider his point. There was little about my dream life to verify any law of proprietorship. I knew myself to have little ability to control a dream’s content, yet felt that somehow, my imagination would be blamed.52

Vragnet and I were walking along together on one of the moons of Jupiter, the dusty surface haloed by a translucent purplish glow. Near the horizon, some clumps resembling lichens insinuated their way up dark, jagged cliffs. Two small moons circled above, a red and a blue; and all our motions were wavy and slow, as if we were skating through jell-o.53

“Anyhow,” I pouted, “I want to know the truth of the universe; I wouldn’t have thought you could help.”54

“What truth in particular?”55

“Why get into it? You’re not even dead yet, you couldn’t know everything.”56

“Yes, but what truth I know might be relevant to life, while the truth of the deceased may prove significant only to the dead.”57

“Ack!” I gasped, as the realization struck me--Einstein had made relativists of us all. There was no more truth without context. At that, the red moon swooped down and surrounded Vragnet like a giant amoeba, then retreated just as suddenly, transporting him toward the zenith. I shouted, “Wait! What about my corollary to the O’Brien hypothesis? Is my cat becoming more human?”58

In his rapid ascent, Vragnet had diminished, now resembling a chipmunk rampant; but I heard his muffled reply, “What difference… would it… make?”59

The horizon loomed much closer now, and a strange popping noise seemed to be coming from the lichens. They had developed pseudopodia on which they danced forward, attacking my abdomen with a flurry of sudden, muted blows, just as a thunderous crash awakened me. The pseudopodia became the dashing paws of Skywacker, who was tearing across the bed. The crash was my jade Buddha, falling off the dresser.60

Skywacker was on his three o’clock mission, and I had slept through the first signals of his desperation. Replacing Buddha on the dresser with a hasty apology, I stumbled toward the front door after the cat. By the time I reached the living room, I knew it was too late. The offensive aroma assaulted me as I flicked on the light and found the mound of damning evidence heaped upon my only genuine oriental rug. “Shit!” I exclaimed, and I meant it.61

Skywacker begged to go out. I assumed this was to avoid my wrath, since he obviously did not require access to the garden any longer. I let him out, although he could have remained without trepidation. At that hour, I didn’t have the energy to vent.62

I shall spare you the details of my subsequent actions, as befits the dignity of this report, and your enlightened sensibilities. It is sufficient to remark that, at the end of that time, all trace of the unseemly deposit had been removed from the third scorpion motif on the western border of the rug. I, too, was again clean and sweetly scented, but utterly shorn of sleep.63

To calm my mind I determined upon a strategy of calculating the probable extent of human-feline contact for each of the cats in my household. Simone was easy--she has probably sat upon my lap about three times in the ten years we have been together. The major data for Skywacker were not available, short of a call to England that would also involve lengthy explanations. I abandoned that line of investigation.64

Rosebud was eight, and had spent at least an hour a day on my lap since kittenhood. Reasoning that he had been born in the spring-- April 1, since I did not recall precisely--I calculated 3037 hours of lap-sitting, allowing for the two leap days. I was not sure how to figure the morning chin-resting-- so to avoid exaggerated claims, I counted mornings at the rate of one tenth of an hour, although it was probably longer, especially on weekends. The combined figures totaled a minimum probable period of contact of 3341 hours: the equivalent of nearly two years at a 40-hour-a-week job, if one allowed for vacation and sick time. If the molecules interacted at anything like the rate of ordinary human productivity, there might be something to show for it.65

Sleepy again as a result of this mental exertion, I peered out in the garden for a sign of Skywacker, but he was not to be found. I called softly, to avoid waking my daughter, but no cat pranced across the porch. I shrugged and returned to bed.66

I had reached that momentary pre-sleep surrender of sensibility where Vragnet still floated, far off in the red moon-amoeba, when I heard a scrabbling, scratching sound in the corner of my room. Dazed, I heard my internal alarm sound, and rousted once again to let the cat out. Someone, perhaps Vragnet, reminded me then that Skywacker was still outside. At the same time, this persistent and industrious noise ascended from somewhere beneath my dressing table.67

“Mice?” I wondered. Not likely with all these cats. Nonetheless, I crouched in the corner, pawing out shoe after shoe, then emptying the box of small objects I keep handy for constructing models of the universe. A small brown muzzle appeared from behind the leg of the dressing table, and two jet beads returned my stare.68

“Chip!” I exclaimed. It was my daughter’s hamster, nibbling out a new nest from one of my lost vinyl slippers.69

He gave me an indignant “what’s the problem?” scowl as I snatched him up and replaced him in the cage. I observed that the trap door at the top was standing open, explaining his presence in my room. My daughter was sleeping. Beautiful, unconcerned. So much for her theory that Chip was too short to escape through the trap door. As youngest, she was the last of my children to make the inevitable demand for a pet of her own.70

“Really, I’ll take care of it myself. You won’t have to do a thing!”71

“We have a house full of cats.”72

“Simone bites, and Rosebud is always on your lap.”73

“Skywacker needs a new friend.”74

“He’s my brother’s cat, not mine. Besides, I want a hamster.”75

“He’ll need a cage.”76

“I’ll get it with my birthday money...please, please, please...”77

The urge to share molecules with another creature is clearly deep-rooted, and hard to deny. Chip moved into the house a few weeks ago, and since that night, has not been much trouble for me. Actually, it’s rather amusing to watch the little fellow running in his wheel. Unlike cats, his kind don’t sit on laps; they have an unquenchable urge to move, delve, tunnel, dash in an endless pursuit of what passes for their tails. And despite all that exercise, Chip’s put on an ounce or two since joining the family. Skinned and dressed, though, he’d probably take up less space on a platter than a braised quail.78

Now, speaking of slippers, I know you know that a significant aspect of this cat/human quandary has not been addressed. I realize that you are not the type to be caught waiting for the other shoe to drop without first determining that the man has two legs. So I know you are already thinking, “What about yourself? Have you not considered the obverse of your proposition, that perhaps you are becoming more and more a cat?”79

“Yes, certainly,” I reply, “that dark thought has entered my consideration, and I approach the future with a certain trepidation. My only consolation is in the parting words of Karl Vragnet (that is, the Vragnet of my dream, of course) ‘What difference would it make?’”80

Either I will begin to exhibit blatantly cat-like behaviors, or not. For the time being, I have decided to continue my researches, and to monitor myself for an increasing fascination with birds and/or tendencies to pounce at the sight of small moving objects. Please recall your promise. This must remain our secret. I am prepared to dissemble, if necessary.81

Meanwhile, if pets are any indication of the dispositions of their future offspring, my son’s children will be articulate, single-minded, sensitive, persistent and clever. My daughter’s will be inquisitive, industrious, quick and thrifty. They will all be up at all hours of the night, dashing and crashing and challenging their loved ones at every turn.82

As a grandmother, I will play with the little dears in the garden, teach them to make their own models of the universe, then pass them, smiling, to their respective parents to take home. To wherever they are living. It will not be at my home. I plan to sit quietly in the evenings with Rosebud on my lap, sharing with him long colloquy on nuclear physics, as we lend our gaze to the tantalizing flicker of fish around the fountain, before slipping off to uninterrupted slumber. Thus, I shall have my requital.83