This is Chester. He has broken the agreement we had when we first bought the settee.
No cats allowed to sit on it.
Pleading will not cut it. He is in serious trouble.
No. You cannot plead your case with Rosemary.
Yes. Hang your head in shame.
And get off the settee now!
This is Chester. He’s unimpressed with the fact it’s father’s day.
Why?
Because, it seems, we have never given him the opportunity to become a father.
It’s an interesting point, but one that requires an explanation. In fact, the serious expression, bordering on smoke coming out of his ears, demands one.
Firstly, if I let you out the chances are you will become roadkill. We’ve had this argument before, a number of times, and that it is not safe outside the confines of this house.
And if I promise not to stray…
I laugh. A cat cannot promise anything, because, well, you’re a cat. That’s what cats do, stray, wander, play chicken with cars, fight with other male cats for practically no reason at all, and worse, chase after any female cat that’s on heat.
I’m not like those other cats, he says. Also, he seems amused by that expression, on heat.
It’s hard to explain, but you’ll hear it before you see it, I say.
And then there’s that look of recognition. We’ve had a few female cats wandering the streets lately that have caused him to become very restless, and make strange guttural sounds.
So, he says, I’m not likely to become a father?
Maybe, I say, if he behaves himself, eats what is put in front of him, and use the litter properly instead of a general target, and stop using plastic bags as an alternate litter.
Yes, finally, a guilty look crosses his face.
I think I just found some leverage.
On the other side ….
As to what side I’m referring to, I’ll let you make up your own mind …
This is Chester. I just told him it’s Dog Appreciation Day.
And it got the expected response, you don’t have a dog.
Ahh.
Then I tell him that a neighbour had a dog just like the one we’re thinking of getting, and they’re going to lend him to us for a few hours.
You can’t do that. This is not a dog-friendly environment. Remember the last time you had a dog. Fleas in the carpet, stains on the wall, and as for toilet training…
Yes, he has a point. The last dog we had was almost a disaster, besides the fact it was ten times larger than Chester. Friendly though, when Chester didn’t hiss at him.
This dog, I say, is smaller, not much bigger than you. A jovial chap who doesn’t bark much, just when recalcitrant cats annoy him, so I’m told.
Who are you calling recalcitrant?
No mistaking that distinct look of displeasure, almost recalcitrant I thought.
It’s going to happen, get over it.
Was that a cat shrug I saw? Another icy stare just to chill the atmosphere in the room, and he leaves.
Yes, I do like stirring the pot. You think he’d know by now.
It seems that we spend nearly as much time waiting as some of us do sleeping. In fact, I’ve been known to be sleeping while waiting.
What is it in this era of mechanization and computerization that we still have to wait. Is it the human element that is still holding us back?
But, hang on, isn’t it the human element that creates the mechanization and computerization? Perhaps we are building in redundancy so that we are not replaced by the very things we are creating to make our lives easier?
We don’t have robots who can perform the same tasks as a GP doctor because we still need the human factor, and since one size does not fit all, no consultation can ever be fit into a specific time frame so there will always be waiting especially as the day wears on.
We cannot automate phone call answering except for the part where you are put in a queue and told your call is important and then you sit there listening to some awful music, seemingly forgotten
There will always be hundreds of calls in a queue for the most important services. or when you need an answer in a hurry, because only a few people are available to answer the phone. Robots will not be able to answer calls either, because once again, only a real person can respond to the randomness of callers questions.
Artificial intelligence only works in science fiction.
Then there is the time we spend waiting at traffic lights, and then, even when the lights are with us, in traffic jams. We are still stumped by trying to find an all-conquering answer to moving masses of people, either by the roads or by public transport.
The latter is all too frequently suffering delays and congestion due to the number of services needed and decaying networks and infrastructure, all of which is only going to get worse, with, of course, longer delays and more waiting.
Maybe the answer is to work from home but sadly the internet, that so-called answer to all our off-site networking, is not going to cope, and in fact, in this country, our latest update is a retrograde step on speed and availability, ie more waiting and less work.
Waiting, it seems, we are stuck with it whether we like it or not. Good thing then our lives are longer. But, if we delve into the mystery of longer lives now against what they were back when there was less waiting, maybe we still have the same amount of life, and the fact we’re living longer is negated by all the waiting.
I’m sure we didn’t have to wait very long for anything a hundred years ago.
Just saying.
It was as if Microsoft Word was sent down from that place in the universe where a group of torturers sit around a table to find new ways of making our lives just that little bit more difficult.
I mean, most of the time it works really well and behaves itself.
But…
Then there are the times, usually when you are stressed about a deadline, or you are nearly at the end of what you believe to be the most brilliant writing you have ever put on paper.
Then…
Disaster strikes.
It could be the power goes off, even for just a few seconds, but it’s enough to kill the computer. It could be that you have reached the end and closed Word down, thinking that it had autosaved, all the while ignoring that little pop up that says, ‘do you want to save your work’?
It’s been a long day, night, or session. You’re tired and your mind is elsewhere, as it always is at the end.
You always assume that autosave is on. It was the last time, it has been since the day you installed it however long ago that was.
So…
When the power comes back on, you start the computer, go into Word, and it brings back all the windows you had open when the power failed, and the one with the brilliant piece you just wrote, it’s just a blank sheet.
Or up to where it last autosaved, which is nowhere near the end.
Or it didn’t save at all.
You forget the software updated recently and that always brings changes. Usually unwanted changes.
By which time you have that sinking feeling that all is lost, deadline missed, brilliant work lost, it’s the end of the world.
You promise yourself you’re going to get Scrivener, or something else, where this doesn’t happen.
Or if you’re like me, you put the cat on the keyboard and tell him to sort the mess out.
This is Chester. He’s got his ‘I want to go outside now’ face.
We’ve had this discussion many times in the past.
The answer is ‘No!’
Why?
Several of his predecessors thought it would be a great idea to go outside, chase some birds, frolic in the grass, chase some cars.
Yes, cars.
And finished up road kill.
After the second such fatality, we decided the next cat, Chester, was going to be an indoors cat.
He goes outside, when we hold him.
He knows the rules.
Any, yes, he’s still waiting, just in case I change my mind.
I have often wondered just how much or how little of the author’s personality and experiences end up in a fictional character.
Have they climbed mountains,
Have they escaped from what is almost the inescapable,
Have they been shot, tortured, or worse,
Have they been dumped, or divorced,
Have they travelled to dangerous places, or got locked up in a foreign jail?
We research, read, and I guess experience some or all of the above on the way to getting the book written, but it’s perhaps an interesting fundamental question.
Who am I today? Or, more to the point, who do I want to be today?
Or it can be a question, out of left field, in an interview; “Who are you?”
My initial reaction was to say, “I’m a writer.” But that wasn’t the answer the interviewer is looking for.
Perhaps if she had asked, “Who are you when you’re writing your latest story?” it would make more sense.
Am I myself today?
Am I some fictional character an amalgam of a lot of other people?
Have I got someone definite in mind when I start writing the story?
The short answer might be, “I usually want to be someone other than what I am now. It’s fiction. I can be anyone or anything I want, provided, of course, I know the limitations of the character.”
“So,” she says, “what if you want to be a fireman?”
“I don’t want to be a fireman.”
“But if the story goes in the direction where you need a fireman…”
“What is this thing you have with firemen?” I’m shaking my head. How did we get off track?
“Just saying.”
“Then I’d have to research the role, but I’m not considering adding a fireman anytime soon.”
She sighs. “Your loss.”
Moving on.
And there is that other very interesting question; “Who would you like to be if you could be someone else?”
A writer in that period between the wars, perhaps like an F Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway, in Paris, or if it is a fictional character, Jay Gatsby.
He’s just the sort of person who is an enigma wrapped up in a mystery.
This is Chester. We’ve been getting quite a few scam calls lately.
Like today, the caller said they were a technician from Telstra, our leading telecommunications company in this country.
The scammers think that most if not all people are with Telstra. The problem is, it’s a lot less than they think.
Hence getting the phone slammed down in their ear, because nearly everyone knows they’re scammers.
So, Chester gives me the death stare after today’s effort. it’s not the first time, and the banging noise startles him if he’s asleep.
That’s enough yelling and banging the phone, he says.
Then you answer the phone and sort them out.
You know I can’t do that.
Well, you should I say. They always ask for the owner of the house, and that’s you isn’t it?
No, I just live here.
I snort this time.
I make your bed, get you foot, clean the little, put up with your cantankerous ways. If you’re going to behave like that, then you have to start taking responsibility.
He gives me that condescending look reserved for the servants.
The phone rings.
Funny, Chester just disappeared.
This is Chester. He’s undercover.
I’ve asked him to investigate the mouse problem, and this is how he responds.
Hiding in the ‘grass’.
Waiting, watching, ever wary.
Those mice will not see him coming.
I try to tell him that hiding on the chair, whilst the mice are on the floor doesn’t make much sense.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
