In between, while he lunched at his desk on a sandwich sent up from the cafeteria, the television brought him a newscast. Some government spokesmen admitted the country was already in a recession, and a few dared hint at an outright depression to come. Experts predicted a fuel shortage that would make last year’s feel like a Hawaiian holiday.
Driving home through twilight, he recalled the kitten. He’d been too busy for that, throughout this day when trouble after trouble thrust at
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him and never a moment came to ease off and swap a bit of inconsequential friendship. Not that anybody had made overtures to him; he had no friends. Puss, he thought, whatever’s happened to you this past ten or a dozen hours, be you alive or be you dead, you don’t know what coldness is.
The garage machinery greeted him. He walked around to his front door. On the mat, a white blur, barely visible in dusk, was the kitten.
“What!” Tronen jumped back, off the porch, onto frozen snow beneath frozen stars. His heart lurched. Sweat prickled forth. This wasn’t possible.
After a minute’s harsh breath, he mastered the fear that he knew was irrational. He, scared of a nasty whimpering piece of flesh? If anything, that was the fact which should worry him. He advanced. The shape at his shoes barely stirred, barely mewed. He unlocked the door, reached around and switched on the porch light, squatted for a closer look. Yes, this was the same animal, though dreadfully weakened by cold and hunger, eyes dim, frost in fur and whiskers.
Cats come back. This one had simply had more staying power than was reasonable.
Tronen straightened. Under no circumstances would he let the thing inside, even for a single night. He wondered why he felt such loathing. At first he hadn’t minded, and as for messiness, he could take due precautions. However … Ah, damn, he decided, I can’t be bothered, with everything else I’ve got to plague me. Una would get sticky sentimental, but I
THE KITTEN
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The thought of having to dispose of an ice-hard corpse in the morning was distasteful. Tronen collected his will. He’d take care of the matter right now.
In the garage he fetched a bucket, which he filled from an outside tap. The metal of the faucet bit him with chill, the water rushed forth with a somehow horrible sound, a noise in this night like the flow of the Styx. He set his teeth, brought the bucket under the porch light, removed overcoat and jacket, rolled back his sleeves. The kitten stirred where it lay, as if trying to rise and lick his fingers. Hastily he plunged the small form under.
He hadn’t known the squirming would go on so long. When at last he grasped stillness, it was as if something squirmed yet in his brain.
Or swirled, roiled, made a maelstrom? God, but he needed a drink! He fished out the body, laid it down, sloshed forth the watera cataract, dim to see, loud to hear. Worst was to take the sodden object again, fumble around the far side of the garage, toss it into a garbage can and clatter the lid in place. When he had returned the bucket he hurried indoors to the nearest bathroom, flicking on every light along the way. There he washed his hands under the hottest stream they could endure.
Why was he squeamish? He’d never been
before. His head felt wrong in every respect,
dizzy and darkened, as if he were being sucked
around and down in a whirlpool.
Well, he was short on sleep, and Una’s deser—
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tion had maybe been more of a shock than he realized; and what about that drink?
At the liquor cabinethow loudly Scotch gurgled out across ice. Tronen bore the glass to his easy chair. His grip shook till cubes chinked together and liquid splashed. The taste proved unappealing, and he had a crazy fear that he might send a swallow down the wrong throat and choke to death. Could be I’ve been mistaken to oppose legalizing marijuana, he thought through torrents. A relaxer that isn’t liquid . ..