Predator's Progress: Mouse on Deck II

Exactly a year, and the mouse – a different mouse – is again using the deck as a climbing frame and promenade to crumbs and seeds from the winterfeed. Looking back at my notes of a year ago, I should say that Gooney has made great improvements in bloodthirstiness. He knows how to sit, for a long time. That is the beginning of all predation. He takes an interest in the rank smells that mark the zone. It's true that he still finds flies more exciting to snap and leap at. It's also true that this small mouse is still at large. (I have deliberately witheld my paw to give the young giblet a sporting chance.) It is progress nonetheless.

A la recherche du chat perdu

A la recherche d'un endroit confortable

For a long time, Gooney used to go to bed whenever he possibly could. Before breakfast, after breakfast, in the middle of the afternoon, anytime before or during or after dinner, when it was dark, when it was not. In fact, he still does this.

He sleeps. Then he wakes up and thinks about sleeping again. So he sleeps again. And so on.

When a cat is asleep, all the birds he has chased in vain circle round him like a host of jeering demons. He stretches out his paw in dream and they fly away, gone forever. Only in desultory fading gusts does the sweet and tasty birdsong touch his trembling ears. Touch and fly.

So it is with the past. It is a vain labour to attempt to pin it with one's claws. It is past the reach of teeth. It is only in some objet, only in the senses awakened by a thing that chances to come within range, that we can once again cry havoc among the twittering fools of youth.

And so, like a machine, Gooney responds to the clatter of the tiny moulded cat biscuits on the hard floor. Like a vacuum cleaner. He touches his lips to the nearest morsel. No sooner has his saliva dissolved the hardened chicken protein than a shudder runs through the entirety of his lithe frame.

What is this extraordinary thing? He does not know. It is a like a giant rodent deep in the earth, deep in himself. He does not yet know what it means, but he can feel it rising, can hear the echoes of the great plains across which it travels.

Halibut's School of Prey Play and Execution

Hmm. I don't know if G is going to develop his new career. On the one hand, he's been looking conspicuous in the vicinity of small dark spaces. On the other hand, I caught him taking effete delight in a little supper of seethed chicken hearts and avocado yesterday evening. (At least he did not descend further into PASTA, which is a human invention of loathsome farinaceousness, resembling cross-sections of intestinal worms.)

Don't turn on the shredder, Gooney.

I have been thinking of sending some small fluttery thing into shock so I can give G some practice. I know, you are thinking: "What's got into Halibut? Why is he turning all warm and benevolent?" Or, "Do you think you are G's mother?"

Well, G's mother (Angel Eyes Xotic Lilac Liberty if you can believe it) evidently did not do her job. Too busy trying to remember her name to feed the little runt, let alone teach him to slay. I don't like to see talent wasted. Even the miscroscopic talents of the Goon.

Raptors

A fatter, sleeker, and faster Halibut writes now from the cover of lush foliage. All this month, the merlins have been screaming at each other from rival spruce-top nests. The sparrows have been too stupid to live in more than occasional terror. It is reassuring to know that the world, that way, does not change.

Gooney and Bhiksu have tried to keep up, as you may see.



(Yes, yes, I know it's on its side, but then I am cat. Cope with it.)

Even the humans have been killing things. I must admit I had a shock the other evening when I overhead them, grouped around the metal box in which they burn their prey. "Grilled Halibut." Fortunately, it was just a joke. They had caught some sort of inferior bird and were doing their best to disguise the flavour by dousing it with a black powder and a yellow liquid. I am too refined to mention the words 'dirt' and 'piss'.