Le couvre-feu (Partie 4)

~ iamthesunking

Mixed news from Le Château today: we were supposed/hoping to have reduced Louis Catorze’s steroids by now but we have had to increase them instead, because the inner corners of his eyes don’t seem to be healing. And applying his ointment is every bit as frightful as you would imagine.

The good news is that he appears not to give the slightest hoot that he is unwell. He’s still eating, drinking, going out and being stupid. The latest addition to our list of Things He Should Be Frightened Of But Isn’t is the shredder. On Saturday he was all ready to stick his face right into it … and, yes, it was switched on.

He is having an absolute ball doing his After-Dark Business outdoors although, worryingly, he has found a new dog to annoy, and we fear it might be Twiggy the greyhound from down the road. Reaching her house is quite a feat – over fences and across shed roofs – but Catorze is coldly determined, and Cat Daddy has watched him leap up and over with real purpose. We never used to hear Twiggy (or whoever it is) barking but now we do, and this cannot be a coincidence.

Cat Daddy gets along well with Twiggy’s daddy but luckily I don’t think he’s even told him we have a cat. And I think he’ll be keeping that to himself for the foreseeable future.

Apart from that one incident when he played us for complete fools – the full tragic tale is here: https://louiscatorze.com/2020/08/25/le-couvre-feu-partie-3/ – Catorze is continuing to make it home from The Front in time for his curfew.

We have tried testing him by giving him irregular times, e.g. “Please be back by 9:47pm.” Pas de problème.

We have also given him unclear times that we don’t even know ourselves, e.g. “Please be back by the time this TV programme finishes” (with no idea of how many minutes are left). Pas de problème.

On one occasion he came back about 25 minutes early and we thought “He’s misjudged this one by some way”. But he just sat happily on the window sill outside, with his back to us, watching the world go by. Then, a couple of minutes before his time was up, he reared up on his hind legs with his front paws on the window and started screaming to be let in.

Could all this just be by chance? Once, maybe. But we have tested the little sod at least twenty times and he is on time, every time. At worst he’s made his 10pm curfew dead on the hour with just a few seconds to spare, but he is never late.

As we roll steadily towards Hallowe’en, I suspect that his creepily precise timekeeping is a sign that The Mothership has been sharpening up her Chat Noir programming in preparation for their big day. Only twelve days to go …

A bit rough around the edges, but still living his best life.

24 thoughts on “Le couvre-feu (Partie 4)”

  2. Poor fella, I can see the congestion next to his eyes. I hope it gets better..

    (I don’t remember commenting with political bs before on the Catorze blog, but when I saw this photo, which I very much like the classic pose, his eyes present as if they are an exact match with Melanie Trump’s squinty eyes. I apologize in advance for even saying it to LeRoi and the staff.)

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    1. Thank you! Luckily the ointment is a little runnier than I remember from last time, which makes the task about 3% less harrowing. Trying to pin down a screaming Roi, open the tube and blob two drops onto DIFFERENT fingers (to avoid possibly transferring crud from eye to eye) with just two hands is not easy!

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    1. This isn’t it, although it would have looked great with a pumpkin! This year, with it being Full Moon Hallowe’en, I wasn’t taking any chances and I decided to take extra-special measures to guarantee a good portrait. To be revealed next week! 🎃

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