At dusk. No later. The kittens will be in by then. “What if I said I want no kittens, just a big fat you?” The Motorway City, Leeds, has more of them, more varieties. And I said I just couldn’t. Mime the dialogue any faster. They’re taking rollcall now. With all the spontaneity of a sarabande he wakes up, showers, puts on a tie, jumps in his Dodge and drives to work. Here there are other, secret choices. He cannot look at them. He must needs leave this place, office, whatever. The beavers look at him endangered from their saw-palmetto-shrouded photomural. No matter, he’s driving to this special house. Word gets out. He makes a U-turn and is soon speeding along a numbered highway out in the country somewhere. “How did it get so itchy? So late?” They bind him to the trash and escort him up the ramp, to the sacrificial slab. Oh? Well, if that’s the way things work out, more power to ’em. Being is only a way of being. When in doubt, fast forward, I always say. Now that it’s Christmas and Mother there must be an explanation for the shadows, the gaps in the grass of the downs over there.
