Page 56 of Love and Other Paradoxes

Joseph Greene,

Hi. I love you. I know this is breaking the rules but I don’t care. There’s a poem you’re going to write about Diana and a cat, and I want it to be this cat. So look after her please. Thanks and I love you and bye,

Beryl (if you could call the cat Beryl, that would also be amazing)

He stared into the middle distance. He imagined a moment in the future, him and Diana at home, bathed in the glow of mutual adoration. As she leaned down to caress the cat, inspiration would have struck. But not anymore. Now, he would recognise the moment as a scripted cue. Any chance of writing the poem in a spirit of genuine inspiration was gone.

He ripped up the note and dropped the pieces in the box, surprised at the strength of his anger. He had accepted that he would never truly write the poems in the book. They were an artefact of physics, their origin as incomprehensible as time travel itself. But he had consoled himself with the thought that there were other poems, maybe even better ones, still left open for him to write. This careless gift had closed them down by one more.

Still, he couldn’t exactly leave the kitten in the hallway. He shut the box, tucked it under his arm, and unlocked the door.

In the living room, Rob was filling a balloon with rice. “Great news, Greeney,” he said as Joe shouldered the door closed. “Darcy’s been eliminated! Squashed by a boulder someone dropped out of a window. Means I’ve got everything to play for.”

“Brilliant. Happy for you.” He put the box down gently on the sofa. It meowed.

Rob cocked his head. “I’m sorry. Did that box just—”

“Meow? Yes.” He took a moment out of his intense existential suffering to enjoy Rob’s bafflement. “I’m experimenting with making a cat that’s both alive and dead.”

“Classic misconception,” said Rob, pressing his ear to the box. “The point of Schrödinger’s cat was to show the absurdity of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Under a many-worlds interpretation, reality splits in two, and the cat in each universe is simply alive or dead.”

Joe opened the box. “Looks like we’re in the universe with the alive cat.”

The kitten looked up reproachfully. Rob lifted it and held it next to Joe’s face. “The resemblance is uncanny.”

“Don’t get attached. I’m taking her straight to Cats Protection.”

“No!” Rob held the kitten close, until she squirmed out of his arms and jumped down to the sofa. “We’re keeping her.”

“We can’t keep a kitten. We’re not allowed. It’s in the student handbook.”

“Byron kept a bear in his room,” Rob pointed out. “He didn’t care about the student handbook.”

“He deliberately kept a bear because the student handbook said he wasn’t allowed to keep a dog. That was in 1806. They’ve tightened up the wording since then.” His thoughts returned to the ripped-up note and the pit of despair it had sunk him into. “Also, I’m not Byron.”

“Not yet. But you need to act like the poet you want to be, not the poet you are.” Rob scratched the kitten’s ears. “Where did you get her?”

“Oh, the usual. Through a wormhole from the future.”

Rob laughed in avery funny, Greeneysort of way. “Doesn’t look very futuristic.”

“Turns out kitten technology isn’t going to change that much.” He tickled her under the chin. She purred and pushed against his hand.

“Does she have a name?”

“I’m reliably informed that I’m terrible at naming cats.” His heart cramped, remembering Esi’s repressed laughter as she looked down at Jeely Piece rubbing against her ankle. “Definitely not Beryl,” he added resentfully.

Rob stared at the cat, who stared back. “Bear.”

Joe couldn’t help smiling. “See what you did there.” He took the kitten and looked into her watery blue eyes. “Bear, Jeely Piece is going to murder you. If the porters don’t get to you first.”

Rob scoffed. “I’m an expert at concealment and subterfuge. The porters won’t notice a thing. Can’t help with Jeely Piece, though. That cat is a law unto himself.” He looked up at Joe hopefully. “Can I use her as an attack animal?”

“What would that involve?”

“Oh, just throwing her at people. Gently,” Rob added, seeing the look on Joe’s face.

“Absolutely not. Is that the real reason you called her Bear? Like writingGUNon a banana?”

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