While fussing about in my kitchen I heard a sound coming from the backyard garden. Thinking it was the feral cats harassing the octopus again, I went out with my copy of Marcel Proust’s dog’s masterpiece ‘In Search of Lost Kibbles’ and began to read out loud.
Just as I got through the first few sentences and the cats all ran for cover, a hooded figure emptied her bucket of cat food under my garden table, stood up, and started rummaging through her bag.
The outlaw librarian again. The last time I saw her she billed me for books taken out of a fictitious library. Rather than find the fictitious characters that checked out the original fictitious books to see if I could get my money back, I find it’s easier to just update my blog on a more frequent basis.
In a hurry I closed the book and pulled a bag out of my pajamas top pocket and offered it to her.
She looked in the bag I gave her and then at me with an eyebrow raised. “It’s a bag of misty rain. Really?”
Stammering, “Look, I know it’s not fresh but it still tastes good with tomatoes.”
Her eyebrow still raised, “You think everything tastes good with tomatoes.”
I started moving some of the cat food around so there wasn’t a riot when they came back to eat. “I had too many adventures to escape this past year. I didn’t realize there were so many.”
Two of us created a fire in the woodstove, two of us put the food away in the root cellar below.
Two of us brought out blankets to warm and dry ourselves while the fire grew.
Two of us started preparing a meal for four.
We four moved quietly within the small cottage above the cave, tending to our warmth, food, and comfort.
“Those four need to establish communication with the other shelters. A sanctuary that no one knows about isn’t.”
I think I remember Pomeeni saying something after that but when I looked up she was gone and I was in my bed just waking up.
She didn’t bill me this time but every time I look outside now the birds are always gossiping about the weather. I think I’ll take the hint.
“He’s the crimson in your face du jour
The fiddler in your darkest night
He’s the melody without a cure
And Rome is burning, but that’s alright”
-The Disco Strangler, The Eagles (Glenn Lewis Frey / Don Felder / Donald Hugh Henley)
