The Cat and the Calculator: Part 2
The Calculator crawled along the many surfaces, gently poking its way through and around the different detritus surrounding the floor. There were ancient rusted urns and tarnished pots, scraps of withered parchment and dry leather. Some spots held tiny jewels or metallic chains, or small rings made of silver alloy and porcelain.
The Calculator studied each one, noting the size and shape, as well as any other pertinent details. As time passed and its inner clockwork continued to churn, it realized a question was beginning to develop. The pieces were all old, and certainly significant — for why else would they be on display like this? — but none of them were the sort of things that were usually put in a museum or collection.
The more the Calculator looked, the more certain it became: an unsigned letter, a shard of a broken pendent, an unremarkable cup, a fired clay statue of a bird…these things had all belonged to one person.
The Calculator admonished its heretical sense of certainty; the collection could be an entire family’s belongings, or perhaps everything from a single rubbish pile.
Nevertheless, the picture forming in the Calculator’s mind was sharpening by the second. If it was all the property of a single person, they must have been someone of great importance, for again, why else collect their castoffs and put them on display? A famous poet, perhaps, or a notable knight. Their shattered sword-cane sat on a high shelf, while their stained tea-cup rested nearby. The short row of shoes suggested sedentariness, while the ragged and hole-filled soles suggested thrift. The odd mix of clothing portrayed a confused soul, or perhaps merely a curious one. The pile of time-gnawed books reflected on the lack of time to do it all, while the chronological display of selected writings provided an arc to what time they had.
What an oddity this shop was, to affect the Calculator so. Rejecting its sinful speculation, the Calculator settled back on their limbs and LOOKED.
The cat part of the world didn’t poke, they didn’t prod. They didn’t sniff or paw or nudge. The world was CAT, but so too was the world the store. All the things in it were a part of CAT, and so too was CAT now a part of it. CAT had been in countless places like this before. They knew there were thousands of people who had been chosen as special, and they neither knew nor cared who had done the choosing. What they knew was that they were there. The shop was there. Things were there, and despite the obvious attempt to imbue the pieces with something miraculous and special, they were no more or less a part of the world.
Like the Calculator, like the Cat.
May I help you?
The Cat and the Calculator were both startled, a rare event for either, doubly rare for both. The Cat stared while the Calculator fumbled casually with its many lenses, trying to exude the air of someone who had known all along that they were being observed.
“Ah,” the Calculator muttered, slipping its limbs back into place. “Forgive me. My…” a thousand words were studied and discarded in a single cog-spin, “…companion and I were merely taking shelter from the crowds. We will not trouble you long.”
Crowds are difficult for me. Noise can make it hard to remember who I am.
The Calculator studied the shopkeep. It knew what it was; it was a wizard. It had a wizard’s hat, and wizards wore wizard hats. It had to have been a wizard.
The Cat sniffed the air. The shopkeep was terrifying in a strange kind of way. The Cat could see all the many ways they were wrong, like a dripping sponge that was dry as a bone or a tree whose branches sank deep into the earth. It was like a sun that blinded with painful darkness or a piece of meat that had been carefully burned to charcoal. Everything about them felt wrong.
The Calculator knew what it was; it was a chameleon. It had a tail, and chameleons had tails. It had to have been a chameleon.
The Cat didn’t know what they were. They couldn’t be anything. They both were and were not. It was something fundamentally wrong but the Cat wasn’t afraid. They should have been, they knew, but they weren’t frightened in the slightest. All the things that they were not, still they were. They sat calmly — patiently waiting for something, the Cat was sure — and with eyes that did not exist they studied the Cat and the Calculator with…not curiosity, but what could only have been acceptance.
The Calculator knew what it was; it was a temple. It had a door, and temples had doors. It had to have been a temple.
The Cat sniffed. “There are a lot of things in here.”
“Yes,” the Calculator agreed, recognizing that the Cat was trying to engage in small-talk. It didn’t understand why, but it generally deferred to the Cat when dealing with other people. “A lot of things.”
I don’t know why I have them all, the shopkeep reached out to gently touch a nearby arrangement of cloth spheres. There are so many things out there, too.
The cat part of the world understood immediately. There were so many things that weren’t CAT, but somehow they couldn’t help but be CAT. “You are fortunate,” CAT purred, “to not have a Calculator to judge every placement and placard. You can throw out anything you don’t want anymore and add anything you like. You’re free.”
“Free?” The Calculator sniffed. “The Linear Church scorns the term. This is a store, yes? Or a museum? It is here for a reason, and people will come here for a reason. If you add and remove things without plan or purpose, you’ll never meet their expectations.” The Calculator turned a glass eye to their host. “You see what it’s like, traveling with a Cat? They always go on about the world, but refuse to respect or acknowledge other people.”
CAT hissed and spat on the ground. “Respect? I respect other people enough to let them make their own choices. You try to manipulate others into your neat little patterns. You think we’re all machines.”
“We are all machines,” the cogs whirred busily. “Just because my innards are built of brass while yours are made of flesh means nothing. We all must follow the lines of pattern and predictability.”
“Church pablum,” the cat part of the world licked its paw in a self-confident display of worldly wisdom. “The world doesn’t map to your made-up patterns and constructed sense of predictability. Just because you’re afraid of the unknown is no reason to burn away the darkness with torch-light.”
It hurts.
The Cat and the Calculator paused in their argument. “What hurts?” the cat part of the world asked.
“Yes,” the Calculator was slightly perturbed at the Cat asking the question before it got the chance, “what hurts?”
Their host didn’t respond. The silence lengthened as both Cat and Calculator pondered their own pains.
It had been many years since either had considered their own suffering. For the Calculator, the struggles of novice-hood had been forgiven many times over. The lessons had been learned and the pains could be forgotten. Failure was simply a part of study, and there was no shame to be had in having once been ignorant — only in remaining so.
For the cat part of the world, pain and suffering was merely another part of the whole world. It wasn’t worth any heed, really; it was almost gauche to pay attention to. CAT had suffered, certainly, but now their pains were in the past — no more than a dream. It certainly didn’t affect them now.
Have you been looking for me?
The Cat and the Calculator looked at each other in bemused skepticism. “No,” the Calculator said first. “We have been looking for something else.”
“Some-one else,” the Cat begrudgingly agreed. “Yes.”
“It’s not a who,” the Calculator sniffed. “It’s a what.”
“Maybe a how,” the Cat admitted. “We’ve been traveling together for quite some time.”
“That’s right,” the Calculator settled down in the Cat’s fur. “Years and years, it feels like. We were both looking for the same thing, you see, and we decided to look for it together. Team up, as it were.”
And how is that going?
There was a pause.
“Not very well,” the Calculator said, surprised to hear it say the words it had so often thought. The Cat made a show of paying no attention; they too had felt it, but hearing the Calculator agree didn’t feel as good as it was supposed to.
It had been an easy agreement to strike. They both sought the Primus and it was always better to travel the worlds together rather than alone; even they could agree on that. It had been their first and only agreement for sixty years. They knew they had a better chance of finding the Primus together than apart.
At first it had been a suitable pairing. They rarely argued, though they never agreed, and it felt like progress was being made. They made their way through the Myriad Worlds on their quiet pilgrimage, confident in their eventual success.
Sometimes I wonder if I am who I am because of who I am, or because it’s who I’ve made myself to be.
“Nonsense,” the Calculator scuttled in a small circle. “If you were made, as I was, then someone else made you.”
The cat part of the world didn’t disagree. Sometimes they were certain that no one had made them, that they had always been there…but other times they weren’t sure. Nevertheless, they knew that if they had been made, it was the World that had made them.
At least, they both had been sure.
As time went on, as the search continued for years on end, success seemed less and less a certainty. Each had become more and more confident that their continued failure was evidence of their own failings. The Calculator searched deeper and deeper into its own codes and patterns, constructing and refining new modes of thought and study. The more CAT saw of the worlds, the more they saw things that were not CAT. They saw how the rest of the worlds moved with ease and grace and it struggled to mirror what it saw, a practiced naturalness that flowed through the worlds in defiance of its uncertainties.
What do they see when they come into my store? Is there a real me or is it all just things sticking to me?
“Have we met before?” CAT purred gently. Something was dreadfully familiar about their host…
“We’ve never been here before,” the Calculator clicked its cogs as it double-checked. “Yes, it was a pleasure to meet you, but we really must be going. Our search must continue.”
I think you have helped me. Can I help you in turn?
“Not unless you know where we can find the Primus,” CAT licked its paw again. “Or help my companion get over itself.”
“Funny,” the Calculator hummed, “I was about to ask for the same thing. This partnership really isn’t working.”
How isn’t it working?
CAT looked up. “Oh, I don’t know,” they said truthfully. “I couldn’t tell you why, I just know it isn’t. It’s like…it’s like we’re two different things.”
“Which we are, of course,” the Calculator interjected, “but still, I can’t help but feel we aren’t compatible.”
“Oh whiskers, no,” the Cat yawned. “If I let this fool carry on, we’d never have gotten anywhere.”
“Much good getting anywhere has gotten us,” the Calculator clicked. “If I had been in charge from the beginning, we’d have cordoned off the different sectors of the Velvet, explored in an organized manner, and worked much more efficiently.”
“And we’d be dead before we got halfway to anywhere,” the Cat sneered over its shoulder. “My way we got to see the Silver Trees of Pike, sampled Northern Roshkana cuisine, saw a flock of migrating yellowbirds, had tea with nobility from half-way across the Velvet, we even had real Buutrou and Yoush from a street-vendor in Klaamp.”
“They didn’t enjoy it,” The Calculator grumbled, grinding its gears together like worried hands. “They just wanted me to think they were enjoying it.”
Why do you say that?
The Calculator drew itself up to its full height, arranging its limbs in the Third Holy Pose of Adherence. “How could they enjoy anything when they don’t understand even a fraction of the Thirty-Six Divine Senses? When it knows nothing of the Twenty-Three Annuls of Thought, or even follow the Nineteen Principles of Resplendent Being?”
I know nothing of those things.
The Cat felt the Calculator slowly sink back into their fur. “Yes, well, most people don’t. You have to be a particularly high-ranked priest to know all of the counted precepts of the Linear Church.”
“We’ve tried taking turns,” the Cat shrugged. “It doesn’t work.”
“How can it,” the Calculator huffed, “when you never keep quiet? You’re always running off and jumping on whichever thing crosses your path. We wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t just walked in. I don’t even think you wanted to come in.”
“I did it. If I didn’t want to do it, why else would I have done it?”
“You see? You see? It’s like they don’t even understand what feelings are! It just does things like a machine! Where is its soul?”
Where is your soul?
The Calculator whirred and churned its gears, sounding for all the world like grinding teeth. “It’s complicated,” it said at last. “I mean, I don’t even know if I have one, but at least I’m trying to learn! I’m studying and analyzing and using all thirty-six of the divine senses to figure it out! Emotions too, and lots of other things!
Like what?
“Like…like…” the gears and grinding grew louder. For a moment, the cat part of the world thought the Calculator was going to fall apart in a pile. Then, the sound grew silent. After a moment, the Calculator spoke again. “I don’t always have the words to explain everything I think. After such an extensive study of the Nineteen Principles of Resplendent Being, it’s…difficult to explain things accurately to others.
That sounds lonely.
The Calculator shifted its body into what it had learned looked like a thoughtful pose.
“Well, that’s an awkward word to use, but in some ways, yes, of course I am lonely. Few are willing to put in the effort to follow the path of the Linear Church. Even then, I am unique, as are we all; no other being in the Myriad Worlds has seen exactly the things I have seen nor done the things I have done.”
“Except me,” the cat part of the world sniffed.
Are you also lonely?
The cat part of the world had thought about this before. It knew how to say what it felt, how to explain what it was like being CAT, but when now faced with the chance to actually be listened to…the words came out all wrong.
“I am part of the world, but everything looks different on the outside than the inside. I think I see everything from a bit to the left. I thought that was just how things were, but then one day I realized that somehow, everything in the Myriad Worlds had gotten together and turned. Rotated. Somehow, I was now observing everything from the right. Now things look familiar again, but I don’t know if it ever switched back…maybe everything slowly turned back around, or maybe I switched when I wasn’t looking.”
Their host stared at them with a look of curiosity, its hand (if it was a hand) resting gently upon its cheek (if it was a cheek). Somehow, both the Cat and the Calculator felt uneasy under their host’s gaze, as if they were being tested and judged in a manner unfamiliar.
Hm, their host said at last. Yes, I see what you mean. You
are
both
so
very
very
different.
The Calculator had always been proud of its standing in the Linear Church. The Holy Dictums explained quite clearly what an acolyte had to do to advance in their ranks, and its every title was acknowledgment of its met expectations. It had been made to do, and it had been judged to be doing well.
Something about the Cat had always bothered the Calculator. It was the way they looked at it when it talked about important things; a look of confusion mixed with concern, like even for all its clerical ignorance, the Cat somehow knew more than the Calculator — that there was something more divine than the Linear Church and its teachings that the Cat had learned long ago. Now the Calculator, for all its knowledge and wisdom, was wasting time LOOKING at the world instead of actually being a part of it.
The cat part of the world had never bowed to anyone. There was no being in the whole of the world who could judge them, because they were the world, as was anyone who dared look at them. If anything was divine, than everything was, and there was no judging that was not unholy in its purpose.
But now CAT wondered if they believed that. Did they truly feel no shame? Were the shadows of the alleyways and soft padding on their feet their true state? Or was the rest of the world so vast and inscrutable that they had learned to hide and call it nature? The Calculator was always so confident, it knew things about the world that CAT merely moved through. Its perpetual sense of satisfaction at its internal cogs and gears moving in predictable ways was enticing, somehow. Who said the world was right? Who decided that natural was good? Why was CAT superior, if it too craved the favorable judgment of a thing that couldn’t even judge?
“Stop looking at me, please.”
The two turned away from each other.
It was terrifying, the fact that one of them might actually see the other.
“We’d best keep looking,” the cat part of the world said. “Just because the Primus isn’t here doesn’t mean we aren’t close.”
“I agree,” the Calculator said, climbing back on top of the Cat’s long lanky body. “I think we’re very close, aren’t we?”
“We must be. And we must keep looking. Mustn’t we?”
“I suppose so.”
It was maybe the second time in almost sixty years the two had agreed on anything.
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