THE PARABLE OF THE PASSIVE PUSSY

I tried in vain to hide, but it was no good, dawn found me hanging from a coat hook on the back of the front door, I was pretending to be John Daly's camel hair coat, with a used tissue and a broken biscuit in the pocket. "You can't hide from dawn or dusk," I said, as I unhooked myself from the door and fell in an ungainly heap on the floor. As I struggled to get up, Tommy my cat attracted my attention, by hitting me over the head with a leather bound copy of, "How Piles Ruined My Life" by the right Rev Howard "sore bum" McHugh. I quickly drew a gun on a piece of paper and attempted to shoot Tommy. The gun went-click. In my hurry I had forgotten to draw any bullets. Tommy drew a stone and happed it off my head, I drew an OUCH in a balloon and held it above my head. Tommy drew a water pistol and pulled the trigger. The gun went-click. In his haste the wily feline had forgotten to draw any h20. I drew a net and flung it at Tommy who became entangled in the mesh. I leaped on Tommy and battered the head off him with a rubber mallet I had drawn on the back of a signed photograph of Joseph Stalin riding a donkey at Blackpool. I held on to the struggling Tommy and hissed, "Oi, what's your game then?" "Poker," gasped Tommy, so I hit Tommy over the head with the poker and it was goodnight Vienna. When Tommy came round he was still alive so I said to him, "What was all that about then?" Tommy rubbed the French bemp on his head and replied, "I was merely trying to inform you that tomorrow is the anniversary of your late daddy's demise".
A tsunami of latent grief overcame me. I rent my garments in a rendering machine, poured ashes on my head from my late granny's urn and began to bawl, lament, keen and cry.
"Oh, daddy why did you go and die? Why did you decease yourself and make yourself dead? Why did you pass over? Why did you go up above? Why did you depart? Why did you shuffle of this mortal coil? You warned me about shuffling, "Pick up your big feet you ugly idigt" you would say, "And stop shuffling about there, like a donkey with turned up feet." Ah, daddy, daddy!" I yelled, "Why did you go? Why did you leave me? Why did you stand too close to a candle flame wearing a ragged kilt and leave me nothing to hold on to but a gutted sporran?"
Tommy ran to me, held me close and muttered "There, there." "Where? where?" I sobbed. "Time is a great healer," muttered Tommy. "I know," I sobbed, "and it's also good for boiling eggs, if you convert it into sand and confine it in a special glass container."
Next morning, dawn found me and Tommy at the graveyard, digging up my late daddy. Just as we reached the black bin liner that dear daddy was buried in, the grave digger ran up, full of ire and Scots porridge oats. "Oi!" yelled the keeper of the dead, "What are you two doing with that dead cadaver?" "This is the remains of my late, dead daddy," I yelled, "Today is the anniversary of his death, so we are taking him to the cinema as a special treat." "That's all right," said the planter of cadavers, "But have him back by ten o'clock. I lock the gates at ten o'clock and if he isn't back in his grave, I will have to make a note of it in the register."
What a great day we had! Tommy and I hauled my late daddy onto a number 37 bus and headed for the cinema. We bought my late daddy popcorn, sweets and crisps and took our seats. The film was called, "They Walk By Night" It was a very scary film, Tommy and I hid behind the seats, but my late daddy just sat there, stoically and impassive.What a brave little cadaver my dead daddy is. During the intermission, I saw lots of family's with dead cadavers sitting among them. It's good to know that death is no hindrance to a good night out. As Tommy and I came away from the graveyard, I felt-good. I felt a strong bond with my late daddy, I never really got to know him when he was alive, but now we could--bond, find-closure and perhaps, in time, I would feel less guilty about all the times I had pushed him down the stairs.
Later that night, as Tommy and I sat drinking old times and talking about coco I looked at Tommy and said, "Tommy, you are very-passive, where as I am very-ratty, how so?" Tommy took a sip of old times and said, "When I was a young kitten, I was veritable weather vane.My mood changed from minute to minute.""NO!" I yelled. "Oh yes," said Tommy, "but I took myself in hand. I travelled to darkest Gortin to study with the Guru of passivity, Willie John McGrundle." "Not--THE Willie John McGrundle?" I cried. "The very one," said Tommy. "For five long years I studied the art of passivity and today I am proud to say, I am as passive as Mr Passivity, who lives in No 27 Passivate cottage, in Passiveville." "Well I never!" I said, as I crossed my legs and gave birth to a welp of ankles. Tommy and I just sat there, staring into the fire and listening to the crickets chirp, "Oh Boy." Five, or was it six days later? I looked at Tommy and said, "What ever became of Willie John McGrundle, the Gortin Guru of passivity?"
"Dead," said Tommy, blessing himself, "Yes, Willie John McGrundle, the Gortin Guru of passivity is dead. He was caught doing the double by the Dole people," said Tommy, "Flew into an awful rage and died from a massive heart attack, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog." We sat there in silence, then I said, "we could always go down to Gortin and take Willie John to the cinema."
"Nah," said Tommy "It's too far and besides, I just feel too doggone-passive to bother about him."

Rosie Ryan's letters to Gerry Anderson and other books available at Eason's and below.
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