I think I'm more cynical.

Writing experiment, kinda sorta in the style of Kurt Vonnegut. Unrevised.

***

There was once a man who had a cat, to whom the man was allergic. The man had not known this when he had bought the cat. Now he wished that he had, for the cat made his throat swell up, his eyes water, and his nose feel as though someone had almost turned off the faucet but not quite, and it would drip, drip, drip until he thought he would go mad from the predictability of it.

The man also had a sister, to whom the man was not allergic. His sister told the man that if he ever got rid of the cat, she would call the ASPCA and report animal abandonment.

One day, the man left his front door open (accidentally, of course), and the cat ran off into the wild blue yonder. The man figured the cat would be happier there.

He was right.

The cat ran off into the wild blue yonder because it was allergic to the man. It was happier for about five minutes before it was hit by a car. The car was being driven by the sister of the cat’s former owner.

The sister cried and, as any rational-minded animal would do in such a situation, knelt down by the cat in the middle of the road and stroked its fur, hoping to soothe it as it passed into the Afterlife.

The sister was hit by a car too. This car was driven by a drunk man. The man was drunk because he was celebrating freedom, which he was experiencing for the first time since buying a cat several years before.

And when he was carted off to prison for manslaughter and driving under the influence, he was laughing, because despite the cement and bars and razor wire and funny orange jumpsuits, he was free, free, free.

He was also ignorant.

The prison had a cat.

***

When I was a senior in high school, we read a story called “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. In the story, Emily feeds her lover arsenic and then keeps him in her upstairs bedroom. Her neighbors deal with this by throwing lime in her basement to cover up the aroma.

Emily never got any roses.

Imagine that.

***

I had lime-flavored liquor one while I was traveling in Italy. It was decently good, but I don’t know if it would have had any power covering up the aroma of a dead person. I don’t claim to be an expert on such things, however.

Many people will think I am strange, perhaps perverse, to have chosen the word “aroma” two sentences previous. I originally had “odor” there, but I deleted it, thinking it too predictable. “Aroma” has a much nicer connotation. “Aroma” makes Death into someone you could invite in for tea, despite the overly large scythe and the ominous aura and such.

I chose “aroma” for another reason as well: because somebody, somewhere, must like the smell of decaying flesh. Somebody somewhere likes everything.

I myself do not like the smell of decaying flesh. Not that I am an expert on such things.

***

Let me give you an example.

There are many, many people who like cats. I cannot fathom why. I do not like them. Actually, that is not true. How I actually feel might offend someone, though, and as any rational-minded animal knows, the worst thing one can do is be offensive.

I ______ cats because one once tried to use my head as a scratching post. This cat’s name was Sadie. Sadie means “Evil Demon Cat” in German. Actually, it does not, but it should. Everything sounds more demonic when said in a strong German accent.

I took the incident with Sadie and from it formed a generalization which I applied to her entire species.

I think this was a very rational course of action.

***

In eighth grade, we wrote choplogics. A choplogic goes something like this:

Why the Chicken Crossed the Road
Chickens lay eggs.
Eggs hold baby chicks.
Baby chicks are cute.
Toddlers are also cute.
Toddlers, because they do not know better, often cross the road.
Therefore, chickens cross the road.

I figured out that I could relate anything to anything because everything I wrote was written in the same gray lead, and therefore all the things I could possibly think of were related at least by that tiny fact of life. I thought I was very clever.

I wrote my choplogic on chickens and roads instead. I got an A.

Imagine that.

***

Where I come from, As are not called As. They are called “ones”. Bs are called “twos”, and so forth. Supposedly, this is because As and Bs and Cs and Ds and Fs have a long history of standing for very definite levels of achievement, and this might intimidate some students with weak constitutions.

I made that theory up.

It’s not very rational.

***

Once upon a time, Curiosity was as fickle as Fortune. It was almost as if Curiosity were constantly pregnant. One day, she would be utterly in love with something; the next she would be dangling it off the edge of a cliff. That is what happened to the cat she so famously killed. Her pseudo-pregnancy became so painful that she went and dropped it.

I say she didn’t drop enough of ‘em.









If anyone lectures me on the multiple meanings of the word "lime", I will bang his or her head into a concrete wall.