🚀 go-pugleaf

     Anghus McPeerson, newly elected Mayor of Eeksburg,
looked down the wintry streets of his town at the cheerful
holiday lights, and sighed.  This was the time of the year
he both loved and dreaded.  All the manic hustle of the
pre holiday festivals, the Catbunny caroling, tree lighting, the
InterAltiversal Foods Feast, with its 87 varieties of gourmet
pickles in the shape of a full sized scooter, all that had come
and gone.  It was loads of fun, and yet combined with exams, and
learning the ropes of his new job, it was intensely frenetic.  He'd barely
had time to catch his breath to himself, the past few weeks.  Somehow
he'd gotten through his course work too, as had his buddies in the Socket
Sighters, and all the other students at VeriTech.  Then finally the last
test was taken, the last paper turned in.  Then a few quick rounds of the
Thank Elvis _that_ semester's over! parties, and then all the rest of the
student population had gone streaming merrily back home.  But Eeksburg was
home to Anghus year round, now that his folks were gone.  Granted, he'd had
numerous offers to visit, yet each time he'd managed to give the impression
that he'd accepted another invitation...
     "Well, I have," he muttered to himself.  "Except, the invitation
is from me..."
     He had it all planned.  He'd do like his professor old Man
Mortimer always did, ignore the holiday altogether!  Ignore the fact
that he had no family now, and no one to celebrate with.  Let it be just
another day.  Stock up on 7 varieties of his favorite cheese product
and spend the whole day eating crackers and indulging in secret vice!
In Mortimer's case, that had been stacks of grade b adventure stories.
In Anghus's case, it was writing poetry.  He blushed even to think of it,
yet it drew him back, late at night, to scribble frantic verses, and
then carefully hide the notebook so no one would see...  He had to make do
with scraps and snatches of time stolen from when he ought to be sleeping.
But not this time!  _This_ time he had a whole week to himself with nothing
to do but write!  Heaven!  He planned to enjoy every single minute of it,
to revel in the glories of iambic pentameter!  To experiment with the heady
hedonisms of free verse!  To indulge in limerics and doggerel to his secret
heart's content!  A whole week!  Richness!  He paused a moment in locking up
the office, just to savor the thought.
     Then another less joyous realization struck hard behind it.  He also
would be absolutely, completely alone.  For the first time in weeks, there'd
be no one around t talk with, not even someone to say hi to in the hall.
Add to that the new emptiness of the streets, bereft of the usual milling
student masses, and the town felt echoing, hollow.  Wind buffeted across his
houlders and stung at his ears.  Anghus suddenly felt how very, very
solitary he was.      "Begin to wish I'd gone with Hendrick after all," he
told himself.
It's gotten so cold..."  He shivered, more at the sense of his new isolation
than at the dropping temperature.  Far away across campus the bell tower
clock rang the hour.  Anghus started.  Six already!  Time to get home.
Not that it really mattered, other than that he was hungry.  It wasn't like
he had anybody waiting....  All his neighbors in the apartment complex were
away, even.  He finished locking the door to the Town Office and started his
walk home through the dusk.  He was just passing a side street when suddenly
and without warning he heard a small sound.  It was most unlike the coo of a
dove.
     "Mow."
     "Huh?"  Anghus stepped back and looked around, startled.
     "Merrow..."
     Something small and draggled and leggy skittered out from an alley
and twined itself around his ankles.
     "If I look down, I'm toastier than an Author," Anghus whispered to
himself.  He began to edge away.
     "Rroww?" inquired the kitten.  It snuggled up to his bony ankle again.
     "No," Anghus told the fluff scrap.  "No, you are not for me.  I
don't care how cute you are, I can't...  I'm not....  I don't..."
     "Wow?" asked a small pitiful sounding voice.  "Merowwww...?"
     Anghus edged a step farther away, and the kitten trotted after him.
     "Don't get under me feet!" Angus exclaimed, dismayed.  "I don't
wanta ste-"
     "YOW!" wailed the kitten.
     Anghus turned and scooped it up in one long armed motion.
     "Oy, kitty bit, I'm sorry!  I didn't mean it, I was trying not to!
Here, lemme see you're ok..."  He began patting the little thing over,
checking its paws and tail.  It sure was scrawny...mottled patches of black
and white covered a hide that showed every rib below.  Bright green eyes
stared inquisitively up into his face out of a black mask crowned by two of
the largest, pointiest ears Anghus had ever seen on so small a feline.  A
moist pink nose sniffed at his coat and then the kitten reached up to dab a
feather soft touch at his cheek, and Anghus lost his heart.  "Toastier than
Pickle the Scooterist and his namesake, President Pickle, both together, at
once," he admitted ruefully to the little creature.  "What did you say your
name was?"
     "Mow," said the kitten helpfully, and snuggled down into the crook of
his arm.
     "No, sorry, that's too much like Mouse.  Doesn't suit you a bit.
Try again."
     Rrrooww?"
     "Uh-uh.  Not a chance.  I don't want you getting in any rows, fights
or fisticuffs.  Got that?  OK, hmm.  Looks like I'll have to help out with
it.  Lemme think on this....  But first, gotta come up with something to
feed you!  You can't eat limburger grunion cheez pizza with me.  But, it's
Solstice Eve, and all the regular stores are already closed.  Eeep, kitten,
eep, we're gonna have to brave the expenses of the (Take Your Money) Really
Really Quik Mart(tm).  Oh well.  Them's the breaks."  Anghus began loping
down the street to the one remaining brightly lit retail sign.
     In the shadows outside the Seventy-Leven store, Anghus paused just long
enough to tuck the kitten into an inside pocket of his coat.  "There, hush
now," he whispered to it.  "And whatever you do, don't wiggle!  I'm ticklish!"
     The kitten promptly wiggled.
     "Eep!  Cut that out!"  The kitten settled down then, and sounds of a
tiny threadlike purr wafted up around Anghus's chin.  Anghus squared his
shoulders.  "Right.  Next stop, kitty chow.  Forward, march!"  He strode
twitchily into the store.
     A very bored clerk with a too small elf hat stuck incongrously
atop her bun kept an eye on him as he scuttled nervously from aisle
to aisle.  Cat chow had to be around here somewhere...didn't it?  Why the
frink couldn't he find it...  He stuck his head up over the chips rack.
     "Um, excuse me, ma'am?  Where's the catfood?"
     The woman looked at him tiredly.  "Sorry, son.  Sold the last scrap of
it about 15 minutes ago to some guy kittysitting for his aunt-in-law."
     "Eeep!  What am I gonna do?  You're the only place open still tonight!"
He stared at her, dismayed.
     "Well, it ain't great, but I do have one thing left you c'n try.
Here."  She reached behind the counter and held something out to him.
It was a can of Spam.

OH NO!  NOT _SPAM_!
REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO JASON, WITH THE SPAM?
RIGHT!  SO, WILL NAMELESS KITTEN BECOME A SUPERGUY TOO?
WILL HE GET A NAME FOR SOLSTICE?
IS THE CLERK AT THE SEVENTY-LEVEN PART OF A FIENDISH PLOT(tm)?
IS THE AUTHOR TRYING TO GET IN ON HOLIDAY SPECIAL MANIA?
("YOU BETCHA!"
"OH, HUSH!  YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TELL!")

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT SAPPY SENTIMENTAL, ERR, WAIT!  WE MEAN EXCITING!
YEAH, THAT'S IT!  THE NEXT _EXCITING_ EPISODE!  *GRIN*

ALL THIS AND MORE, RIGHT HERE ON SUPERGUY!





-- Peg Fisher        Charter Member, Live Poets Society
recycler@nrv.net     http://www.nrv.net/~recycler/

Speak from the heart, and hearts will understand.