The Great White Burden: A Kitty Revealed.
Posted on February 5th, 2008 by Seth
This is Alf. Most often called Kitty. Sometimes called The Great White Burden. On occasion, Little Shithead. He is pictured here, quite out of character, resting in front of the fire: the one element capable of momentarily quenching his wild spirit and silencing his restless yowl, the one element as unpredictable and dangerous as Kitty himself.
Like the heat put off by this fire - Kitty is known for the endless cloud of white fur that seems to emanate outward from his ample coat with every tick of his nervous ears. It is difficult to tell if my carpet is the color of Kitty by chance or by design. This white fur is Kitty’s most plentiful gift to us and to the dark garments of our world. It is also, unfortunately, his least appreciated gift.
In addition to fur, Kitty’s other renewable resource are his fast growing, self sharpening claws. As far as I can determine, he wields these not in the name of defense, but rather as a form of fetishistically vicious foreplay. Kitty likes roughhousing. You on he, he on you - it matters not to Kitty. For him, the thrill is in the exchange. Like any connoisseur, Kitty is an attentive steward to his source of pleasure. He finds joy in the cleaning, polishing, and stretching of his claws as he digs vigorously at the edge of anything with a cushion. After fur, these claws are Kitty’s second most shared gift.
The true soul of Kitty, and the thing that sets him apart from other felines in its degree of severity, is Kitty’s personality and the ways that it is manifest in his behavior. Kitty is bat-shit crazy. Though he often lays in the window box - content to impotently enjoy the world outside - Kitty’s primary source of external entertainment is the television. Sometimes Kitty will stare at the TV for hours. Kitty gets particularly excited when he sees birds, other cats, polar bears, or Sarah Jessica Parker. Kitty sits and stares in such a manner as to make me uncomfortably self aware that I am doing the same thing. Do I look like that when I watch TV? Are flashing colors and a vague sense of self recognition really enough to hold my inanimate attention for so long?
The strangest aspect of Kitty’s behavior is that, when excited, Kitty seems to have no control over his head. He thrashes about like a cat possessed by the Unholy. It is a wonder his claws manage to find their target when he is in this state. He applies this same unmotivated abandon to the manner in which he navigates the apartment. His speed and trajectory seem sourced from a corrupt matrix deep within Kitty’s frenetic brain. Though I may feel reflectively disappointed as Kitty watches TV, I am comfortable with the fact that I do not recognize much of myself in him as he animatedly exorcises these unseen demons. So this is what separates us from the animals…
Luckily, Kitty’s idiosyncratic routine - his fragile calm and his ever potential attack - manage to garner more love than disdain in our apartment. He is a messed up cat, but he is our messed up cat. Sometimes I light the fire just for him. He needs the rest.
