Writer's Block
Where has my energy gone? I have begun sleeping eight or even ten hours a day; for someone who lives on five or six this is strange. The housework is starting to pile up. I have towels that I washed the day after Halloween sitting on my dining room table. I have completely run out of coffee cups. While the life of a bachelor is never a clean one, it can at least be organized. I lost all my money in the detritus four days ago, checks, cash, and credit cards. It’s around here somewhere, but where?
I feel completely jet-lagged.
Welcome to The Time Change. We are now back on Pacific Standard Time here in Seattle. That means it’s light at nine and dark by five, and it’s only November 15. The average temperature is creeping down down down to forty degrees, the temperature inside your fridge.
I have decided that I might be showing signs of light and heat deficiency. For someone of my lusty, swarthy nature this is some form of inhumane Nordic torture. The Skandis may have invented the dark and brooding philosophy that defined the Twentieth Century, but my own people invented raping and pillaging Europe. I realize that this magazine is technically a German company, but even my employers are a little dark-skinned, have noses a touch too large, have no foreskins.
I digress.
In order to combat this accursed lack of light, heat, and order, I am going to clean the house while getting righteously drunk.
First things first. I turn on every daylight bulb in the house, those expensive long-lasting Norwegian ones (you’ll never make a philosopher out of me, Norway, but thanks for the bulbs). Twenty-two thousand Watts of faux sun begin to make me feel downright perky, even though my skin is starting to blacken and crack from the infrared. Then I load the tranquilizer gun and prepare to hunt the cat.
If you have ever seen the fully grown bastard offspring of a cougar and a raccoon attack and eviscerate a bagless vacuum cleaner out of sheer irritation with the noise, you’ll know that this ritual is one of kindness. I’m entirely serious about all that. Less than a year into this animal’s life I was unsuspectingly vacuuming the carpet when a banded Fury exploded in and hit the machine with enough force to rip it from my hands. He wrapped himself around the still-running vacuum and bit into the handle, back claws jack-rabbiting the plastic dirt container into shards. I spent the next three hours tweezing splinters out of a very upset cat.
The ensuing mayhem looks and sounds something like this:
“Here Kitty, Kitty! Come here, Baby Kitty! Come on, Pasha!”
A dark and guttural howling springs forth form the bathroom, like seven timber wolves fighting over a human corpse.
“Come on, Mr. Puffy Pants! Come get your medicine!”
The metallic crashing of porcelain tiles off an iron tub as sharpening claws rake them from the wall.
I know where he is. I can distinctly hear broken ceramic clattering onto hardwood. He’s at the end of the tub closest the door. Bad, very bad. The hallway is only thirty inches wide, and its light switch is right across form the bathroom. Damn! He’ll get me if I go for the light.
Silence.
He tosses a chewed and broken human femur out the door, mocking me, taunting me, daring me. It caroms off the wall opposite and clatters down the hall, landing at my feet. I can hear the crunching of bones breaking under his immense weight as he shifts into position, coiling up, preparing to strike.
Silence.
I know he can hear me, but I know he’s a mostly a visual hunter. Even though he has a brain the size of half a shelled walnut, he has a patience I will never own. I wonder about his hearing, though. I leave the hall and put on his favorite record, Sly and the Family Stone, turn it up loud. “Sing,” “Spin,” or “Sin” comes on, I have never understood the lyrics to that song even though I find it quite catchy. I wonder if he can hear me over the noise. Apparently he can, because he flushes the toilet in reply, mocking me again.
I flop down on my belly and try to crawl up the hall, preparing to ball up and cover my face and neck with my hands should he strike first. The acute angle of the door’s opening begins to obtuse with every tense elbow length forward. I bring up the gun and turn on the night-vision scope, just in time to see him pounce.
All I can feel is the immense pressure of his jaws clamping down on my head, railroad spike teeth breaking skin and drilling bone, his fence-post claws pulling my shoulders nearer his maw.
Oh, good, he’s only playing! If he were trying to kill me he’d be severing my spine at the base of my neck with his jaws, using his back claws to dig through my soft underbelly and spray my life-giving guts all over the fine antique Persian rug. I lift the rifle under him and fire into his groin, once, twice, three times. The pain does not improve his mood, but at least gets him off me. He screams at me, that grinder-on-metal sound of a junk car passing through a diesel-powered crusher. He sways slightly, the drugs taking effect quickly. I wonder if I missed and got him in the femoral artery. Yup, there it, green tufted dart sticking out between belly and thigh. His eyes narrow slightly as he quiets. I sit up and watch him fall asleep, wiping the streaming blood off my face with a now-soaked shirtsleeve. He begins to purr.
I pull the dolly out of the closet and heave his bulk onto it, roll him into the bedroom and throw the iron bar into place over the door. I should have thrown in a reindeer or two in case he wakes up, but there’s already an unsuspecting band of lost hikers in there. That should keep him happy. I can hear them playing hackey sack now. This will be interesting.
Okay, now to the cupboard for the shaker and vodka. Into the fridge for the ice and lemon. I look at the mess and decide I have no idea where to start, so I sit back at the desk. Suddenly an arrhythmic pounding starts from the back parts of the apartment. I realize the dreadlocked white hikers have started a drum circle. A wet popping sound stops the off-time thumping, the sound of an irritated cat head-butting one musically impaired. The screaming starts, the cries of, “Dude, what was THAT? Oh my God, Dylan’s dead!” Scrambling sounds, pounding at the bolted door. Much more entertaining than cleaning. I pour myself another drink.
Good kitty!
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