The State of the Novel (7)

The Novel Behaves Heroically

The night the Hotel Stillwater burned down The Novel was returning from a soiree at the Davidson’s on McGuffin Avenue. For his supper he had recited The Cremation of Sam McGee, a performance that won the attentions of Mrs. Poteau. Mrs. Poteau told him the story of the time her father brought home the fishercat. The Novel enjoyed the tale so much he informed her he was going to steal it. Take it sir take it, Mrs. Poteau said, blushing all the way to her décolletage.

A great crowd watched the Hotel Stillwater burn. As the flames grew higher, the crowd’s enchantment grew. The Novel found me near the front. It impresses me, he said, to see all these upturned faces lit by flames.

A cat jumped onto the sill of a fifth floor window. The crowd gasped. Oh kitty, it said.

The Novel asked if I liked cats.

I adore cats, I said. That settles it then, he said.

He threw off his coat and ran into the burning Hotel Stillwater.

Somebody stop him, a man in a grey jumpsuit said.

Yes stop him, a woman in a grey dress said.

No one followed him. No one called for him to come out of the burning Hotel Stillwater.

The fire department arrived, sent a ladder to the fifth floor and rescued the cat. Someone suggested the fire department should adopt the cat and name it Sparky. Sparky is a good name, several people said.

The Novel walked out of the building with a cat. He said he couldn’t make it to the fifth floor but had located a cat on the second.

When they put the two cats side by side, no one could tell them apart.

The Novel accompanied me home. We stopped in the park and listened to the ducks on the pond.

We forgot the cat, I said.

I wouldn’t trouble myself with it, he said.