Marvin, the cat, simply lay on the chair and watched
the proceedings around him. He only moved when an ass
threatened to sit on him or else, a little while
later, when a lap threatened to disappear again. But
in some manner or another, with or with out the human
flesh in between, he was always lying on the chair.
He reasoned that it was his chair because, after all,
possession was nine tenths of the law, right?
There were, of course, a few rare moments when he was
not on the chair or even on the lap on the chair, but
he kept these times to an absolute minimum. Oh, he
did get hungry or thirsty from time to time (who
didn’t?), and with these came the obligatory bowel
movements and relieving of oneself (oh, come on, it’s
a fact of life!). Sometimes these things had to be
done, and even fewer times these things had to be
mentioned (thank god!) because the narrator was trying
to use as many words as possible to fulfill a personal
goal of writing fifty thousand words by the end of the
month of November, year two thousand and one. That’s
neither here nor there, of course, but the fact was
that said narrator was quite a bit behind, it being
the early morning hours of the twenty-third of the
month and he was only on about word seventeen thousand
or so. All of these facts should remain unmentioned
as we continue on with our story about Marvin -- did I
mention he was a cat, oh best beloved? Yes, he was
and still is a cat, bless his soul, but he was not the
Cat Who Walked By Himself, no siree. Quite the
contrary, he was, in fact, the Cat Who Lay on the Chair With Or
Without The Lap, which isn’t nearly as nice a title
for a story, just so you know. Luckily the chapters
in this book aren’t titled, but rather are discreetly
headed with only the word "chapter", followed by the
numerical representation of a consecutive counting of
how many chapters had preceded said chapter, plus
one. Luckily, I say, because just for the sake of
argument, let’s hypothetically assume that the
chapters had instead been given distinct names, such
as "Chapter Eight: The Deathday Party" which can be
found in the second book of the Harry Potter series.
Of course this chapter would not be given that title,
but would instead be given the title "Chapter Sixteen:
The Cat Who Lay on the Chair With Or Without The Lap". Well you
can just imagine that if someone saw this book on the
shelf of a Barnes and Noble bookstore (assuming also,
and previously, that the book had by some freakish
miracle been published in the first place) and if that
person were - as it is known to be done among some
distinguished circles of new book buyers - to open the
book to a random page and see what kinds of names the
chapters had been given by a certain author - namely
me - well, then they could very well open it to some
part of chapter sixteen which, coincidentally, holds a
lucrative spot just past the first third of the book
which, as you may well guess, is a prime target for
opening-to-a-random-page activity, and then they would
plainly see that some fool - namely me - had entitled
the chapter "Chapter Sixteen: The Cat Who Lay on the Chair With Or
Without The Lap" and chances are very good that they
would immediately return the book carefully to its
proper place on the shelf in disgust. Coincidentally,
they would also probably wonder why the chapters of
such a short book are so small as to allow chapter
sixteen to come along only about a third of the way
through the book. Curiosity might lead them to remove
the book again from its proper place on the shelf to
flip through the end of the book and see how many
chapters there were in all (wish I knew).
All that aside (and, for the sake of suspension of
disbelief, promptly forgotten, please), it must be
mentioned that this story of Marvin, the cat, though
he is still living in November of the Year of Our Lord
Two Thousand and One, actually takes place a few years
earlier, in the near past you might say, if you were
the type of person to use such a term. The time the
story, if it can even be called that, takes place is
quite important (even though the date remains,
unfortunately, ambiguous), because it is when the
Walsh family was still all together and intact. Yes,
you could say Marvin’s full name was Marvin Walsh, if
you were the type of person to attach to household
pets the last name of the family that they happen to
be living with, as if they were somehow an actual
member of the family (incredible notion!). If you
were one of those types of people, then you would
probably say that little Marvin Walsh, the cat, was
the cat son of Ned and Irma Walsh, even though it
would be quite obvious to everyone that little Irma
Walsh had not actually given birth to little Marvin
Walsh (the cat).
But this is neither here nor there. It is however at
the Walsh family home that Marvin was, if not born, at
least born nearby, and raised until the present time.
And for as long as anyone could remember, he liked
that old wooden chair for some reason. Maybe the
reason was simply that the chair was in a good spot
for Marvin to lie in and watch all the important
happenings of the house. The chair was an old country
craft chair, the type of chair that wasn’t old enough
or nearly high enough quality to be an actual antique,
but was, in fact, just a cheap rip-off of an
antique-looking (not really) chair that ended up
looking like a cheap stage prop from The Little House
On The Prairie.
The important thing to remember here is that Marvin
liked the chair and, indeed, found it quite
comfortable. And not only was the chair comfortable,
but there was also a good chance that the Lap that
ended up in the chair (after the associated Ass had
driven poor Marvin off) was also very comfortable.
All in all there were, at this time, four Lap-Ass
combinations walking around in the cozy three-bedroom
house where Marvin lived, and a good three of them
(the three biggest) had laps that were at least as
soft as the chair cushion beneath. Luckily the smallest one, the one with rather bony and
uncomfortable-looking lap, only very rarely sat in
Marvin’s chair and, in fact, seemed to prefer rolling
around on the couch or the floor when it wasn’t too
busy running from room to room screaming at the top of
its lungs for some reason or another.
The fact was that all this aforementioned screaming
had driven poor Marvin quite insane and quite deaf
long ago. Perhaps he had somehow willed himself to be
deaf to cope with all the noise of the house, but it
was quite apparent that you could yell into his ear
at the top of your lungs and he wouldn’t budge an
inch. The only thing that could get Marvin to move
was a large human ass traveling with some momentum
towards his furry little cat head. It was even
suspected that perhaps Marvin was also legally blind
in his later years, for his field of vision had
narrowed down to only being able to recognize the
blurry shapes of the asses and laps appearing and
disappearing around him. Like a cave fish, Marvin’s
vision had deteriorated later in his life from extreme
lack of use due to his spending about ninety-nine
percent of his time engaged in restive cat-napping.
When he had to sit on a lap, he preferred the lap of
the big girl most of all. The strange thing was that
the girl seemed to be getting bigger and smaller at
the same time. In the early days the biggest girl
didn’t seem to have a lap at all, but instead often
just sat on the floor with some book or another. When
she got taller her lap appeared and her ass shrunk to
the size that it could fit on the chair. For Marvin,
those days were like heaven, for her lap was as soft
and squishy as a plush pair of water balloons. Slowly
but surely the lap got bigger, and Marvin had more lap
to sprawl across, but it also seemed like the lap was
at the same time losing a little of its softness. By
the time the big girl started going away for long
periods of time, her lap had become almost firm and
muscular, and Marvin pined for the days of the large
fleshy lap of youth that he had known and loved.
Chapter 17
Chapter 16 was first written November 23, 2001
It was last edited December 28, 2001
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