She was at the end of the service island that was the propane range and the four station breakfast bar; the stations were stainless steel stools made in France by some bistro specializing stool manufacturer.
Or maybe they were an assembler; it was hard to imagine anywhere in the non-Asian world that there might be an actual manufacturer; those French stools probably must have been assembled in France from parts made in China – or (horror of horrors) the previously French colony of Vietnam.
In any event the question had been asked and it was hanging in the air like a beautiful spider web in a glinting early morning sunrise; it was amber and steel and blue and silver; and there was a spider at its center; the spider would be the nub of the question, the poisonous and fatal fangs of the spidery dilemma of life itself: “what is your idea about god”?
Peter turned away from Jolene and looked out the glass side of the house on the channel side of the view.
“Whatever the cats think is what I think”.
“Dad, don’t play with me on this; I have some strong – simple but strong – feelings about the answer to this question; I want to know whatever it is you have come to, because I know you think about this stuff and you are not the most simple minded man that I know; so I really want to know what you think”.
“Whatever the cats think is what I think.
“They live lives, follow rules, adjust to new circumstances – these three, but for an accident would be all out hidden in the undergrowth out that window, looking for small birds and voles for dinner; instead they are in here, and one of them is sitting on one of the stools at the bar with his elbows on the bar like Norm in Cheers and being a fifth member of our convivial little gathering; if I say ‘treats’ – I guess I just did, he’s getting down to help me get them, he will get down and help me get them; and for that reason – the fact that Cinq just got down to help me get his treats – I can’t shake the feeling that they are just like me, only different; they learn as much English as they need to know; they really don’t care about politics, except that which is native to their species, so they don’t know a lot of political words; but they know a lot of fun words: ‘walk’, ‘treat’, ‘cheese’, ‘cream’, to mention just a few of the words that they know.
“Why are they different from me at the cosmic end of the sort of all that soup that we now call DNA?
“Why aren’t they subject to the same end game rules that we humans have always assigned to our species?
“I think they are.
“Subject to the same rules.
“And I think that that fact gives clarity to what the rules really are.
“We have always had ourselves – humans – in some form or other going to some ‘place’ ruled or administered by some overlord – Europeans have always called that overlord ‘god’.
“But the animals, like these well-vocabularied cats, have always been assigned to some post life non-existence state; that makes sense to me; but it makes sense to me as the rule for all of us; I can’t shake the feeling that has grown on me as I have become older that we are all in this together and we all can to a fairly great extent look to the same ultimate destiny: we die and cease to exist.”
Jolene winced.
Peter looked into his wine glass as if to avoid seeing the wince or as if to find the meaning of the cosmos; whatever – either would suffice at a time such as had just passed.
Alfie, though, if one had been paying attention, would have been seen to have watched Peter intently as he had been speaking.
Alfie, though, could have been seen, if one had been paying attention to have picked up his left paw and stared at it as Peter spoke and as he finished to have made a spitting action into that paw.
And if one had known what the sounds meant, as Alfie began to chirp and whine one would have heard him say “except for the turtles, the matrix and the mirrors you have it exactly right; the problem is that with the turtles, the mirrors and the matrix – including all those big bangs – you have it grotesquely wrong.
“Death is only the portal.
“The turtles, mirrors and the matrix are the destination.
“The trick is to change a random event into a controlled event.
“That is what we are about here.
“That is what we are about here”.
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