Leanne Abbot was 54 when her mother died. It hadn't been sudden. Gradually, the little old lady her mother had become withdrew from the everyday, too frail to take part. Leanne had been there at the end, when the old lady her mother had become (and she did seem to have suddenly become a very old lady) passed. She held her papery fingers in her own, and her mother said with her last wisps of breath 'Don't forget to put the cat out.'
Don't forget to put the cat out. Now this was strange. The Abbotts' cat had been lost to the world about 13 years before Mrs Abbott shook off her own mortal coil and whilst ready at first to dismiss the imperative as the product of last minute delirium, it didn't take Leanne long to revise this judgement. Mrs Abbott had been in full possession of all her mental faculties, coherent, clear and comprehending right into her last days, and her daughter had not seen any change in this. Perhaps more importantly, she was loathe to believe that her mother's final words to her were meaningless. Mrs Abbott had always been a woman of very few words but those she deigned to annunciate always came with a precision, with a dignified, and sometimes punishing wit. Don't forget to put the cat out. It must, Leanne concluded, have some significance. Leanne had inherited many of her mother's idiosyncrasies. Her stature, her disdain for socks in the summertime and her strangely fervent enthusiasm lime cordial. She did not, however, adopt the same economy when it came to language. She often felt foolish next to her mother, which she resented more and more as she grew older, wondering why her own wit hadn't matured yet. Since being an anxious twenty something, she had felt her words decidedly 'flabby' in comparison. Definitely clumsy. Yes. Her mother had the Language Command. But, as Leanne reiterated to herself, no cat to make commands about. Don't Forget to put the cat out. What did her mother mean? What could she mean? Leanne thought of the advice a dying woman may give to a loved one. Probably something abstract. Wisdom is often generic, thought Leanne and then, proud of herself scribbled it down in a notebook of pasty epithets she kept, just in case she had the opportunity to impart advice on her demise. She wrote it down as number 29, under 28 which read: 'there is a fine line between the profound and the obvious, all that's required is pleasing syntax.' One of her mother's pearls. Well, thought Leanne, the cat was clearly a metaphor. This was easily deduced by the situation's lack of an actual cat. But what for? What would one be wise to put out? Negativity? Bad luck? One would do well to dispose of bad luck, which convention dictated often came in the form of a black cat. This, however, was a fairly unhelpful suggestion. Bad luck is not a thing a person can simply refuse, and besides the old cat had been a tortoiseshell. Racking her brains, she made a list of all the various feline significances she could summon. Luck, being first; tigers, witches and Tom Jones being at the bottom of the well scraped barrel. Perhaps, in her mother's incisive, meta forethought she was referring to the very cat she spoke of. At this point, it was about the only cat that Leanne could think of. Dispel the cat that lacks symbolism from your mind. It doesn't do to dwell on the meaningless. No. That was silly. Maybe a future cat that Leanne would receive. No. Her mother was not a soothsayer. But general life advice. Put the cat out. It became a motto. If shroedinger's cat had been put out, maybe he could have been in far more places at once? Maybe they were words of encouragement. Carpe Diem. Put the cat out. Or, a more grounded understanding with the same sort of implication, put the cat out so you can go out and do things without fear of it clawing up the furniture and trashing the place. Do not let anxieties that need not tie you down, tie you down. Her inner monologue turned hippie. Groovy man. Put the cat out. It all seemed a bit silly but, as Leanne recognised, some things sometimes need putting out. Cats, bins cigarettes, foolish ideas. Put the cat out. In her mother's voice Put the cat out. Whenever anything needed putting out. Put the cat out DO NOT FORGET. Leanne's mother had always been a woman who was good with words. Conscise. Clever. Compassionate. She liked cryptic crosswords and lime soda and had a vehement disdain for Gilbert and Sullivan musicals which she said she would not give them the courtesy of explaining. Not that Gilbert and Sullivan cared much. Leanne's mother also had the dubious honour of knowing her daughter better than anyone else, and knew that a riddle was more fun than grief. If you leave someone with a puzzle, you haven't left them until they have solved it. That was the bonus of the ghost of the author. Once words are uttered one has no control over the inference. Meaning diffuses like a last breath. But someone, somewhere will probably care enough to wonder what the hell you were talking about.
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I think another element in this cast iron creative block is that there is already so much out there. The world is swollen with content and I get overwhelmed by objects and things.
Top of the Stuffs from IsaacLacklustre on Vimeo.
this is about everything and nothing.
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