Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The cat was playing the fiddle. A snippet.



Johnny was asleep, and who wouldn’t be after such a rough week?  The whole state of Georgia knew about the contest, everyone was celebrating.  Fire works over every neighborhood, costumes on every corner, and the ice cream vans out in full force supplying cold treats in the warm southern heat.  Johnny was asleep, and while he was, the cat played the fiddle.

A cat does not normally have a tenable position towards fiddle playing.  Paws are not quite made for gripping a bow, and don’t even get me started on the strings, but I know what I saw, and I saw that damn cat playing the fiddle.  It stood in the old, cracked bay window as proud as could be, on its hind legs, and it strolled back and forth across the sill, twisting notes from that golden instrument.  All around the yard, children stood, jaws agape, amazed at the music, most of them dancing, already forgotten about the feline that was doing something quite unfelonious.

I could almost hear the devil gnashing its teeth in rage, stomping around in a lake of fire so far below.  He musta been mighty ornery to have lost the dang thing.  It’s a beautiful piece of work, that fiddle.  Anyone would want it, but no one could have it.  No one except for Johnny, and, it seemed, his cat.

The music went on through the night, with the cat never ceasing the tune.  It would sway, change, mutate, turn into some other song out of a child’s dream, but never really did it cease.  Children outside fell asleep as they were licking cold iced treats and dancing, going on to dream about things far more sane than a cat playing a golden fiddle.

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