Talky Tin

Many years ago I wrote this little story about our fierce Saudi cat, Whites.   He lived a long life and is buried in the garden of one of our expat homes.  I put some flowers in with him so that if the shifting sands return him to the surface, anyone who finds him will know he was loved.

I thought I had lost the story, but I got round to a pile of old paperwork that came from Lilac Tree Farm,and found it, so I thought I might as well blog it.  I will ask Captain B for a photo of the beloved beast.   We had the new boiler fitted, and in the wake of that a leak... so its been a week of sitting around waiting for plumbers etc to call.  Though Jean and I did get out on the work on Tuesday, and we visited Maggie yesterday. Found her very well, and very pleased to see us.  (We were both too ill to go last week.)

TALKY TIN  by me

Talky Tin sat in the window seat looking inscrutable.

At least that's how everyone said he looked. And then they said what mysterious creatures cats are.  But, although she had tried hard to see what was inscrutable about him, Emily hadn't been able to so far.  To her, he seemed very easy to read.

When he was happy, he purred and smiled.  When he was hungry, he wailed and bellowed.  When he was sleepy, he fell asleep. He fell asleep on the instant, wherever he was. Emily had found him slumped by his food bowl;  upside down in the flower bed;  snoring happily under the feeder while the birds pecked around him,

He loved people, climbing and purring over all visitors - falling asleep on them if he was sleepy - waiting at them if he was hungry.

Apparently, to be true to his inscrutable type, he should only have sat on those visitors who were allergic to cats.  But everyone was an acceptable cat couch to Talky.

He detested all cats.  And he was not at all inscrutable about making that known. He didn't even bother  to go through the elaborate fight rituals of his kind.  He fired no warning shots across the bows. Any cat coming within the invisible line Talky had drawn around house and garden met a business like set of claws and teeth instantly.

They left quickly. And they did not come back.

All in all, Emily thought that Talky was probably from another planet.  And he hadn't bothered to do his Earth homework properly.  Or perhaps he was just lazy about his camouflage.

Yet no-one had noticed.  No-one apart from her. And apparently she didn't matter.

Which left a nagging worry in her mind. If Talky knew that she didn't matter, did that mean that he had spotted her?