Luminous Biscuit
An hour into the storm the lights shone dimly as Gerard went to rescue the kittens from the swimming pool. ”A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends”, thought Gerard as he made his way through the garden and down to the pool. How the kittens had ended up in the pool was still a mystery, but there was no doubt that thirty-three of the little buggers had escaped their cages in the basement and made a dash for freedom. Frightened by the storm, they had all plunged into the deep end of the rather luxurious vanishing pool, where he and Margo had spent many an afternoon, sans bathing trunks, as it were…
Another thought: “Procrastination is the thief of time.” Gerard couldn’t help wondering if it had been a mistake to mix a week’s worth of Xanax with his last bottle of whiskey, but it was too late to do anything about it now. “I wish I could write as mysterious as a rhino!” He really needed to speak to his therapist about these increasingly bizarre random thoughts. “I do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock, even if I am rescuing kittens in the middle of a storm,” he declared to nobody in particular.
He reached the pool and counted thirty-three kittens struggling valiantly. They were remarkably good swimmers, much to his surprise. Even so, they wouldn’t last much longer, and if he was going to do something, it had to be now. Gerard prevaricated, and then, as he jumped into the pool still wearing the rubber pants and handcuffs, he shouted, “If my hat can believe in me, so can these kittens!”
Under the water it was much quieter, and before long, Gerard was able to rescue all thirty-three kittens, flinging them out of the pool and onto the patio. By the end of the exercise he was exhausted, unable to see clearly and, quite frankly, floundering a bit in the deep end of the pool. Margo had passed out under the trapeze and wasn’t likely to help him. He stopped thrashing and settled his mind. The benefits of a classical education revealed themselves as a snippet of Shakespeare flashed in front of him as he sank to the bottom of the pool: “To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there’s the rub.” At least the kittens would be alright…
