sunshine made diamonds of every drop of water that collected on the tips of grass, or atop walls or dripped from the country bumkin who was lingering when the car stopped. His badge said Country Bumkin *Third Class* and he'd been left outside as a test, the test being to notice the rain and come in. He failed yet didn't seem unhappy which I suppose is the main thing. I asked for a spade so the cat could be scraped from the front wheel and he observed.
"Take more'n a spade to put that right."
"Put what right?" I said
"That'm cat." He said nodding at the whiskered face peaking from under the same front wheel that hid the rest of its flat carcass.
"It's dead, I'm not trying to put it right."
"Ah," He said and wandered indoors.
I began to work the feline flesh from between the tyre treads, once unpeeled it retained a half moon shape. Later, a clever razor lamb slung beneath the cat's curved corpse cheerfully demonstrated paragliding to her mates. I remember thinking what a rare example of the virtuous circle, well, half circle.
Public houses on the North Yorkshire Moors have penchants for Toby Jugs. I'd noticed this previously in The Cracked Mind where a high shelf was lined with jugs representing famous breakdowns, pride of place went to a Norman Bates jug whose handle was a carving knife twisted through a shower curtain. Only The Slaughtered Lamb was without a display however on reflection I'm almost sure its high shelf was populated with grotesque enamel faces that made lewd suggestions throughout the time we were there.
Above this pub door creaked a wooden sign that carried neither name nor picture. I pondered the heavy board as it swung slowly one way then the other. The brickwork similarly carried no name and the unimaginative beer advert didn't help stating only "Beer, get it here." Unlike the other establishments we visited this pub had only one room with a rough bench laid over wooden barrels and rather than a high shelf populated by thematic jugs there was instead a low shelf upon which rested a single jug of enormous size. A further striking feature of the jug was it's resemblance to one of the villainous sheep we had passed earlier. I mentioned this to the barman who unabashed told me it was modelled on his cousin.
After this there seemed little point in asking for the menu.
Descending from the Moors we paused to watch another storm as it broke. A large bird circled casually on the updraft. Then driven toward us on a powerful squall the following words lashed our car with a ratatat of manic diction, "Cats!... dontcha just love em... Ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... "
It might not have been a bird.
7 comments:
how does this work?
I read a few lines of calm and easy lyric values and begin to slow down. the mood shifts suddenly and I begin to notice that the world is not quite right. Strange characters enter who say things that are entirely correct in an absolutely wrong situation. tension mounts. the whine of insects and heat escalates. there is a dangerously unbalenced element - demented - introduced, and it puts the balance at risk.
the mood is calmed by observations that threaten to make things suddenly normal, but then again.... it's not. a thin whine of tension continues, there is a train-wreck obsession building, a waiting to see what is about to go horribly wrong.
and then it - doesn't. Nothing goes right, you understand, its just that the ominous brooding thing continues to be ominous and brooding without anyone being eviscerated in the process.
And then I shake my head, smiling softly. I've survived another of Dan Flynn's posts. It's changed me, subtlely, of that there is no doubt. but there are no fingerprints, no evidence of the crime. the scene is calm and untrammeled.
Hayden,
You say the sweetest things. But the truth can sometimes be a hard thing to grasp and I am but someone who chronicles what he sees. Up on't North Yorkshire Moors one sees a lot, one perhaps sees too much. Obsessions, darkness, shops that keep irregular hours, it's a spooky place believe me.
xx
any place that has malignant, paragliding lambs is a scary place. This goes without saying.
Hayden,
You Californians are truly a wise people.
You would give Steven King some serious competition.
Suppose that flattened cat got up and walked?
gg, this is Dan's world. A dead cat get up and only walk? Dan hates cats. It might open its eyes and stare balefully, or snicker, or pee on your shoe, or sharpen its claws on your vocabulary. never anything so innocent as to simply rise from the dead and walk.
G,
In Flynnworld flats cats stay flat. There is no redemption for cats here. Oh, and another thing, I'm about to clean up my back yard after a harsh winter and looking out of the window I see a shitty cat shitting in on of my pots. Grrrrr. Death to all cats, well not the big predator ones of course. Only to mangy tiddly household ones, the fuckers.
Hayden,
Ah you know me so well. As I've mentioned on many an ocassion previously in my opinion the only good cat is a dead one. And the only useful thing they might contribute to the great circle of life is as manure for the green world of mother nature. And that really is the most charitable thing I can say about these spawn of Beelzibub.
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