White Cats in Petersburg (Free-writing)

Who embroidered the chair and where? Some say it was made of Russian hair sold by the gremlins born in the Kremlin and those ind, decent Russian markets. Others suggested and expounded that the red roving carpet, winding like the Neva in islands from balcony to grand staircase between the tables, bookcases and pedestals was dyed with the blood of a thousand bears  Others that the colour is from cranberries collected at gloaming by witches (your average babushkas).

Aloysha likes to stroke the hair because it was filched from beautiful girls. Their halo of  silken femininity castrated by their poverty. Other times he hates the chair and spits on it because the hair came from the poor; beggars, prostitutes, the wayward and more. As his mother and grandmother before told him, the poor are only paying for their sins (when committed who’s to know; in the space between conception and birth?) or was it their father’s sins and fathers sins. Something like that.

Then Alyosha wonders that his father was not considered sinful . Clearly, since Alyosha lives in such a lovely  grand mansion. (Expansion of space. You know you are a lucky race. Though limited here to those 49 Islands. What’s to fear from spreading out - there’s land out there  though no-one wants to live with the bears, or what would we wear?).

The carpet worn threadbare and fire burning secretly, in a neglected corner. The chandeliers silent, no longer singing a blazing song, only a discoloured hum. Each candle in disharmony with the others, latent with memories reposing uncomfortable  in the far-away forgotten night. These candles spoke and caressed  each other with their flames every day  for a century or more and have nothing more to say, have exhausted all topics and avenues of affection. Alyosha the boy stares at them sometimes and traces his finger around their baroque curves, blows air kisses to an angel. The chandelier is indifferent and cold, because he is the 100th , the 1000th, the 100,000 boy to pass under their candles and they are all alike..

Alyosha takes the white cat in his hands and strokes it, ‘How many lives have you had, my dear?’ How many lifes, kitty.’ The cat remains mute and still as china, so ungrateful it doesn’t even deign to purr. Furious, Aloysha grabs the decorative sabre from the wall and smashes it against the cat so that it splinters into myriad pieces, spilling dry white blood, white intestines over the carpet.

Misha, Alyosha’s own white cat, Alyosha’s darling jumps down from the fire ledge and begins to lick the sugar, . She is not made of clay and her tongue winds precariously around the sharphostile edges of  her china cousin's corpse.

She slits it on a sharp corners and and yowls just as Alyosha scoops her up. Seeing the blood drops Alyosha holds her tight in one arm and ruffles through the draws for sellotape or a plaster to bind the grazed tongue. There is only miscellany, letters,  old kopecks and combs, a pack of cards, a ball of wool. White Cat wriggles from his hand. Soon she has disappeared into the corridor and is yowling in the dark.

Alyosha walks back and forth and almost cuts his foot on the china. A pertinent revenge, it would have been. He only wanted to destroy the cold china cat and not harm his Misha, his dear white kitty.

A plaintive mewing rises up from the carpet , like the last whisps of smoke from a dying fire and for a moment Alyosha thinks it is  the shattered china  calling to him. He stares in horror and frantically begins looking for a dustpan and brush  in the caretakers cupboard. He can’t find it there and what is it called anyway?He’d never used one.  Amongst the high shelves  all he finds is a broom taller than himself and in the corner yellowed sheets of a newspaper. He pays no attention to the date inconspicuous in the corner which showed the paper was from 1789 (and that date - what did it mean to him , just a few granny’s grannies ago where perfumes were even stronger and food even more insipid).

 and vroom vroom vroom plops the cat shards in the paper and into the bin amongst sweet wrappers and orange peel. He still hears  a faint mewing and in horror takes the bag and throws it from the balcony into the garden below. The remnants spread out and some of the china fragments fall into the lake.