What time do you go to bed and wake up currently?
Since it’s Catorzian Summer Time, Louis Catorze sleeps all day and parties all night. Nobody knows exactly what time he goes to bed or wakes up, because our body clocks are so at odds with his.
One night last week, I was woken at 3am because someone’s car alarm was going off. (And, whilst looking out of the window to see if I could see the car, I managed to stick my head through a spider’s web, so I then had a disgruntled spider on my hands and Cat Daddy was most displeased at having to get rid of it.) I went to sleep downstairs in the kitchen for a while, because it was cooler and because it faces away from the road.
When I walked into the kitchen I could see Catorze outside on the patio, but he didn’t see me. And it was very interesting to see what sort of things he gets up to when he doesn’t know he’s being watched.
It wasn’t a surprise that he was outside; because it’s CST, he spends every waking (and sleeping) minute in the garden or the Zone Libre. What was astonishing, however, was how active he was, especially in the blistering heat.
As he’s an old boy, I imagined he would be relaxing and watching the world go by. Instead, he was hunting insects and eating them. Even when I settled down to sleep and could no longer see him, I could hear him battering against the glass patio doors as he hurled himself around. The little sod was committed to the cause, I’ll give him that.
Then there was the screaming. At the bugs? At another cat? At himself? Who knows?
Finally, Catorze came indoors for an Orijen break. When he saw me dozing in the kitchen, because it wasn’t an everyday sight to him, the screaming resumed. And it went on. And on. AND ON.
Eventually I decided that I’d get more sleep with the car alarm, so I went back upstairs again. But for a few moments I felt pure joy to know that, whilst the world slept (or, rather, half the world, since the car alarm woke the other half), Catorze was having fun.
He may be a creaking, ancient relic, but he’s certainly making the most of the time that he has left.
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
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