XXXVII.
I sit in my customary place on the window sill and
gaze out and down.
There is very little food in the house. There are people gathered at
the
bus stop below. I will wait until after the bus comes before I
venture
down and out.
All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.
For the past week or so. I'll come back from the store as usual
though and
go about my daily life. But I diagnose that I have been infected with
a meme.
The story of Puss-in-Boots. I think it has always captivated me. I
read now
that such reactions are called being subject to an outdated grand
narrative.
Someone might tell me an avante garde grand narrative as an antidote
I am
hoping. Such infectious conditions obtain when the subject hears the
narrative
repeated under suitable conditions. And I have a video of the
anime.
I dangle my tail over the sill and swish it around
a bit. I remember that
I look good in boots. Right on cue I'm a street walking cheetah with
a
heart full of napalm. I giggle. I find my other at the same time as
me funny.
At this point I am annoyed by a voice on the
street. It is loud and self
confident, that is why I can say that what it said that voice
seemed
reasonable anyway. I peer at the source. It's someone I know.
From
somewhere. Who? I run my mind back down through memorised time.
Nobody I can place.
It becomes extremely important that I find out.
Time seems limited. I put
on some shoes and run down the stairs on to the street. Blinking into
the
light. I see that the object of my attention is walking in my
direction,
talking to a group of friends and gesticulating with hands the parody
of
little brown sparrows. As he passes I detain him by the
sleeve.
"Don't I know you?" I venture. He looks at me distantly.
"Don't think so," he says. His eyes are blue gray. I think quickly.
"No, I've met you before," I say. He smells
delicious, like just baked
bread, a cake out of the oven, a ripe mango. I do not swoon. No. I
hold
myself rigidly still willing this eddy into eternity. Unrecognisable
man I
know switching the uncanny into the familiar I must keep you
talking.
"Well, I don't see how, " he says finally, "I come
from a land far away
and under the belly of the earth. Have you ever been there?"
"Not since I was born," I answer.
"Then perhaps before, " he says eyebrows raised.
"The six directions are
always crossing after all, and you have 7 senses I can tell."
I break and start walking. Miraculously, it seems to me, he walks with me.
We begin talking about nothing special. This
continues all afternoon and
evening. It feels much much longer. The other people drop away. I
don't
know where we go or how we get there. I feel as if I have been
hypnotised.