The Well-Built Pie

Written by Jerome K, in this year of our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Six - (and another hundred)

Chapter x – Concerning Roswell

At this point in my narration, it would be a good moment to pause temporarily and introduce more formally my travelling companion, Roswell.

Roswell is a large, rather rough-looking cat, of a particularly mean and spiteful disposition. His matted, usually filthy coat makes valiant attempts to be white, but rarely succeeds. He did, when he first moved in with me, have mis-matched eyes – one blue, one brown. However, one day he returned late and looking especially foul of temper. As he glared at me indignantly, apparently contemplating which soft part of my anatomy he would savage first, I realised that the brown eye was simply gone. I never found out what happened to it, but I strongly suspect that the household of one of the larger of the local rat population now has it as a trophy adorning his sitting room.

Roswell came to me several years previously. I was standing in my kitchen, contemplating some deep philosophical issue or other, or possibly about to fry a kipper, I don’t remember clearly now. Suddenly, through the open back door (it was a warm day, and a lively kipper), shot a small brown blur of squeaking flashing black eyes. It was followed immediately by a considerably larger white blur of hissing, spitting death.

Roswell (for it was he), pounced on the rat (for that is what it was) directly at my feet, and with a single shake of his head, not only despatched it, but caused it’s head to fly clean off, and bounce across my right foot – a most peculiar sensation, given that I was in no way prepared for it. He then calmly strutted into the living room, splayed himself out across my chair, and has been here ever since.

He ate the kipper too.

I spent some time asking around the local area, enquiring as to whether anyone had lost an ugly, mangy engine of destruction and rodent genocide, but curiously, none would admit to it. By this time, in any event, he had made himself thoroughly comfortable at my house, and considered the arrangement quite suited to his needs, although he was never happy with the lack of a milkman. The postman would come, and Roswell would saunter out to greet him expectantly. When a manila envelope was proffered instead of cream, the postman would generally leave shortly thereafter, counting his fingers. I think that after the first 6 months, Roswell must have known, but by then regarded it as his duty to keep the postman entertained. Or, postmen I should say, as curiously none would ever stick it out on our round for very long. I did hear, although it may be an exaggeration, that one poor fellow ended up in a soft room, babbling about the “White Demon in the Rhodedendron Bushes”. He was always a rum sort of fellow though.