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THE LOST CAT PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS: SEASON 2: EPISODE 2: EXOTIC GRAVITIES

Released on: 9th October 2016

http://thelostcat.libsyn.com/season-2-episode-2-exotic-gravities

Did you know that moths will endlessly circle an electric light because they mistake it for the moon? The moon is what they have always used to navigate by. It is just the way they are made.

Someone once told me we are all made a particular way.

The question is, what are we mistaking for the moon?

THE LOST CAT PODCAST SEASON 2, By A P CLARKE EPISODE 2: EXOTIC GRAVITIES

I was staring at the message on my phone: ‘Things are bad. We have to meet.’

I looked at my violently shaking cat bent over double in front of me and thought that maybe the message had a point.

It is true that roads have been disappearing. It is true that we have all lost people when we woke up to find their streets simply gone. It is true that we hold monthly vigils down at the train tracks for Those That Had Waited.

But, here’s the thing: we do not forget them but netiher do we hold mournful memorials of silence and tears. No, we laugh, and we drink, and we dance and we sing, for these are the memory of them alive.

And in this way we live a little closer to the flame.

No, I could not agree with the message. This was my city, and I love it. How could I hate anything that brings me together with my friends?

The message continued: ‘things are getting worse. we have to meet.’

And I closed it down. No. I was looking after my cat who had been lost and was now found and was acting very strangely indeed.

And, as if to prove my point the cat suddenyl straightened itself out and walked out of my room. It just snapped back into shape and walked calmly out in to the hall. I followed it out, and just as I entered the hall, Maupin came in through the upstairs window.

I looked up and said, “hey Maups, where have you been?”

Her forehead was bright with a sheen of sweat, there were dark sooty marks on her hands, and around her eyes.

“Oh ‘ello mate, I was out for a run.”

I looked up at the upstairs window and the pre-dawn haze dribbling through the curtains.

“A run?”

“Shut up,” she said brightly as she whooshed past me. “What are you doing?”

I pointed to the cat, “it’s definitely acting weird.”

“Your cat is fine,” said Maups.

Bojana came out just then looking about wildly, looking worried, “Maups? Maups?”

“Hey, babe.”

Bojana looked her up and down, “oh good god look at you. Are you alright?”

“I'm fine,” said Maupin “It is just dirt.”

“It's getting worse,” said Bojana. “I get scared.”

“There’s stuff needs doing, babes.”

Bojana said, “I get scared.”

Just then the cat walked past Bojana in to the kitchen. Right through her legs.

“See,” I said, at that moment. “It always used to be scared of feet, right?”

I looked up to find them staring at me. I looked back at them.

“I can make some tea,” I said. “We can see what it does.”

We all looked at each other for a moment. Maupin took that moment to leave.

“It's just your cat,” said Bojana. “It's just your bloody cat.”

And then she left too, leaving me alone with my cat. I went to put the kettle on.

But the cat kept walking, calmly and purposefully straight through the kitchen and out through the door. Out into the pre-dawn world.

And, as teh cat-flap swung shut, it was gone.

These are the choices we make. It didn’t feel like a choice at the time - it just felt like the right thing to do. But it always feels like the right thing to do. I think I always make my choices like this.

And the choice I made was:

I put the kettle down, and followed it out.

Out into the strangely silent street, the cat turned left and walked with a firm purpose west.

In the brisk pre-dawn gloom beneath the cloud, I followed. Out past the stone village with my head bowed, bumping into the new arrivals that were overspilling onto the cracked tarmac. Out past the valley and the castle, keeping my mouth closed.

My beautiful, bizarre neighbourhood: how could anyone say it was getting worse?

I had rarely seen it at this time of day – perhaps it was a good decision to leave the house.

Still my cat walked on, steady and clear in its heading, not stopping to sniff at rubbish, not starting at random movements, not making arcing paths around other animals. Beneath the traffic jam and out into the forests of the old suburb. Beyond the houses. The light was clear now as day was slowly beginning to win out.

I picked through long grass and traffic cones, clambered around thickets of overgrown suitcases, and took detours through what were once living rooms when the paths abandoned the old roads entirely. The shadows often looked like chessboards, as parts of roofs hung in the branches above me. Sometimes I would be stopped by the sudden appearance of floral wallpaper, and had to open a glass panelled door to continue. In this way I made my way through the old suburbs utterly over-run.

And still my cat walked calmly, purposefully on.

Then it was joined by another cat, stepping out from the bushes from the North. And then another. And another. They formed into a line and carried on walking West.

More and more cats joined the line until it snaked into the forest both ahead of me and behind – a single line of silent, marching cats. I followed, making sure not to step on any of them.

The forest opened up to one of the relatively complete streets still remaining with its fences and houses still standing beneath shady branches.

The cats began to fan out, spreading across the street as they approached a clearing drenched in clear day light towards the end of the street.

And there they sat, in concentric rings around this clearing, perfectly still and calm. I approached. The clearing used to be a house, and was now a circular area of dirt around 30feet wide, flattened by some massive impact. Where a house had been was now a perfect circle of soot and ash. The light came from above, as whatever had done this had destroyed the forest above it on its way in, creating a clear shaft into the sky and the Dark Cloud above. The house was utterly obliterated by what had landed on it.

The destruction was complete.

I dtepped into the black circle and the ground was soft beneath my feet. The soil was still entirely loose. I left footprints.

I looked up through the hole in the trees at the Dark Cloud above.

I backed out of the circle carefully.

Then a cat next to me went from the stillness of inaction to the stillness of almost supernatural attention.

“I wouldn't step in that yet,” they said. “We don't yet know exactly what caused it.”

A figure was emerging from what had been the garden shed of what had been the house at the centre of the blackened circle.

It was a figure of some extreme poise, walking across the ground in smooth sweeping steps, their face a picture of amused glamour, and wearing an extremely sharply tailored grey suit.

They stood before me. They cocked an eyebrow.

“So did you get my texts?”

“Actually I just followed my cat.”

And they laughed at that.

“Then let us call it fate.”

“Perhaps it’s just chance?”

“Choice, chance, fate or destiny: we are both here.”

“How do you know know me?”

“You lost your cat. You made a podcast.”

“Yeah, that is me.”

“Big delay in releasing new episodes though.”

“Well, I've been busy...”

“And I have been busy too, and I need your help. I...am an investigator. I have made it my job to investigate the great crime being perpetrated against this city.” And they pointed up, at the Dark Cloud that hung heavy over us all. “Every secret kept from us, every corruption covered up, every atrocity done beneath its gaze.”

"You said you could help me with my cat?”

“Your cat is tied up tight in this. You know this is true – every death, every disappearance, from your cat to entire neighbourhoods – they are all linked, linked beneath a Dark Cloud.”

With that they produced a bottle.

“Still drinking the red wine?”

“Oh yes,” I said.

“Think I got a reason for that big delay.”

“Hey come on, its been hard.”

“And it's been getting worse. These last few months, these months since you lost your cat, has held more activity than I have ever seen and whatever arrived late last night.” And they moved their fingers down from the cloud towards the circle of darkened earth, “could be the worst of them all. But it's been a long night and I could do with hearing some music. So if you do not mind, I'll get this open and you can play me a damned song.”

So they opened the bottle and we sat a low garden wall, looking at the cats, and drank a glass of wine.

<music begins: ‘Stars Fall From The Sky’, written by A P Clarke and C Couture, performed by 76)

Take my hand we’ll take the floor and then we’ll dance until the dawn and when our feet are filled with lead and we have danced until we’ve bled lay down your head In the morning I’ll be gone as many times I should have done All the things you can not say you are bound to lose some way so they say When you see a falling star, dance on it tonight I’ll go dancing every time the stars fall from the sky When you see a falling star, think on it tonight I will of you dear every time the stars fall from the sky When we danced we were on fire No star could have shone so high But this star could not shine so bright this star won’t survive the night It shone so bright When you see a falling star, dance on it tonight I’ll go dancing every time the stars fall from the sky When you see a falling star, think on it tonight I will of you dear every time the stars fall from the sky And know that, when they land its just another romance ended, as ours did somewhere in the night When you see a falling star, dance on it tonight I’ll go dancing every time the stars fall from the sky When you see a falling star, think on it tonight I will of you dear every time the stars fall from the sky Next time that you see the night count the stars up in the sky we danced one down just you and me we danced one down in to the sea.

As they spoke they moved with extraordinary grace, and they waved their arms around in large fluid gestures, while their eyes were great dark suns of enthusiasm.

“Are you happy you have your cat back?” they asked.

“My cat has changed.”

“All things change.”

“I am not even sure if it is my cat anymore.”

“Tell me, do you think you have stayed the same?”

I looked at the line on my wrist. I mean, I felt the same.

I said: “I've come a long way to find my cat, and a lot of things have happened to me, but here I am still following my cat.”

And they laughed, a big, open laugh. I did not know quite what to make of them, and the things they were saying. They seemed genuinely excited to be talking with me. That made me happy.

They leaned in, swirling their almost empty glass around, as they spoke, and said: “did you know that a moth will fly in to an electric light because they mistake it for the moon?”

“I may have mentioned it.”

“It is nonsense. The existence of man-made fire for 400,000 years would suggest natural selection would have kicked in by now.”

“Did you know that the female moth’s pheromones are slightly luminescent on the same spectrum as flame, so male moths fly in to fire believing they are flying towards their mate?”

“Well, is that true?”

“Probably not. You see we do not know why moths fly into flames. We have no idea. And yet something in the way they are made compels them to dash their wings into the flames again and again, bound to the light as if by gravity. Such is the hold this gravity has on them, it is unclear if the moths even realise anything is going wrong.

“They are invisible, they are unknowable, and yet these exotic gravities are all around us, and hold us fast in their embrace.

“And these cats, your cat, have been bound by an exotic gravity of their own these last few months. We all know they are sensitive to what, to us, are invisible forces – changes in magnetic fields, the shifts that occur before earthquakes. They say they have a special affinity for ghosts.”

“Ha,” I said.

“Today these cats all headed to the exact spot a star fell from the sky.” They pointed up, at the Dark Cloud. “The Dark Cloud covers us all. We are watched, we are controlled and that... is the organ of observation. It is everywhere. It sees everything. The Dark Cloud covers us all. You see it: you see it move, see it shift, see it gather and roil as the focus moves from one thing to the next. On and on.

“This is the exotic gravity that has brought the cats here, they are bound to the lines of observation of the Dark Cloud, and follow its ever shifting focus. And this place must be a point of extreme interest, for all focus is on it, from above.”

“How can I stop my cat being affected by this?”

“Oh, it is made the way it is, it can not help it.”

“What should we do?”

“We can ask ourselves what it is we are mistaking for the moon, but perhaps we should be asking ourselves what is the moon that draws us to it.”

And then they leaned in, closer still: “Finally we have a way too see past the dark cloud. We have a map of its intentions. By following these cats we can find out the answers. By following the cats we can bring the Dark Cloud down.”

“Why do you need my help?”

“Who better?”

“To destroy the Dark Cloud is to loose its control over my cat?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“I want to help.”

“Then so it is.”

And so it was. I would follow my cat, and we would bring down the Dark Cloud.

There was a deep booming sound from somewhere far off just then. Moments later hundreds of cats suddenly bent themselves over almost in two, vibrated and then walked off in the direction the sound had come from.

“Well then,” they said.

And we followed the cats.

They walked with grace over the uneven ground, as if flowing. I found myself tripping over paving stones and roots as I tried to keep one eye on my cat.

“You seem confused,” they said, with some amusement.

“It is a lot to swallow.”

“It must be difficult for you. All you did was follow a cat and it has brought you in to far larger a world than you ever knew existed.”

“Oh hey, I've seen things.”

“My dear, you are blind.”

I’ll admit I was a little put out by that.

“Do you know the masked lady?”

“The who now?”

“There's a masked figure out there, she saved us from a Street Eater yesterday.”

“No I have not, but I think I shall have to meet them.”

“Not only that but she saved a street by re-directing the eater into a cul de sac. I was right there.”

“Impressive,” they said. “But what is one more street here or there?”

OK, that annoyed me.

“I've lost people.”

“Do not speak to me of the people we have all lost,” they said with some sudden venom. “I will not have their graves make a pendant for your neck.”

“I am sorry.”

“That is alright, but I can not worry about one street when the battle for the city is before us. There is no point re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.”

“Who is to say we are sinking?”

“My dear, the water is at your knees.”

“Then what should we be doing?”

“We should be attacking the iceberg”

“And what is the iceberg?”

And they pointed straight up at the roiling shadow of the cloud above us all.

“You know as everyone knows that it sees everything. That it knows everything.”

I looked up at the swiftly moving current upon its surface. “Stormy,” I said.

“It is angry and it is getting worse. It has never been this active before. Look at the writing.”

They put their hand out then, blocking my path. “Listen: Did you know the patterns of Street Eaters perfectly fit certain algorithms. Did you know that those algorithms can be found in the structures of the cloud?” They prodded at my chest with each point, for emphasis. “How did you get your cat? Did it just adopt your house? It chose you, yes? Didn’t it? Didn’t it? These are not coincidences. These things do not just happen. They are choices made, and made for a reason and the reason is a plan and the plan is…”

And they saw the confusion in my eyes.

“Oh, how can you be so blind! We are at war here. We are spied on, we are occupied... ”

And they stopped. “I am sorry,” they said suddenly. “Please forgive me.”

They looked me straight at me as they said this, fearlessly. In the middle of that perfect face, their eyes had been awake for a very long time. They raised their hand and held it gently upon the side of my head. Their fingers moving along my hair above my ear. “Please forgive me, and thank you for your help. I need it.”

I put my hand over theirs.

I did wonder why they chose me again. I believe they thought I would have an empathy for their world-view and, as I watched in their eyes the great yearning and the pain of the places that yearning had taken them, I could see what they meant.

“It's OK,” I said.

They withdrew, straightened themselves up, then held out their hand for me to shake it.

“My name is Spiris, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you, Spiris.”

We shook hands. And we began walking again.

But as we cleared the forests we saw smoke above the houses. We hurried through the streets, avoiding the pilgrimed cats.

“Where's it coming from?”

“It's coming from...it's coming from...the pub!” I declared, and started running.

We turned the corner and there it was. Flames retching out of the ground floor windows, smoke like billowing worms pulsed up into the Dark Cloud.

A crowd had gathered and many were trying to get water into the pub, but the flames were too intense. Cats were sat in a row on the other side of the road, watching dispassionately.

The pub was gone. There was no saving it.

As we ran up, we saw, just off to the side, behind the people, a man sat quietly on the curb, staring at nothing. It took me a few moments to even recognise him.

“Azzy?” I cried, and ran up to him. “Azzy!”

It was the landlord, Azzy, usually so welcoming, so gregarious, so loud: shoulders slumped, and his face completely expressionless. He smelled of petrol. He had a lighter in his hand. An unlit cigarette hung from his mouth.

We took the cigarette from his mouth and the lighter from his hand.

“What did you do?”

And with a voice bleached grey of emotion he said: “I set fire to my pub.”

“Why did you do that? Why did you do that?”

And Azzy finally looked at us, his eyes focusing at the centre of a paled blank face

What exotic gravity had brought him to this?

He said: “The Empty Man made me do it.”

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.

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