Kyoko Yoshida
yoshida@hc.cc.keio.ac.jp
Number 2 Pencils for the White Cat
(First published in The Bibliophilos. Spring, 2001. 14-18.)
Mr. Crow is a corporate accountant, but, to tell the truth, he is a closet novelist. Whenever Mr. Crow runs out of ideas to write about, he switches his polished ebony fountain pen to a number 2 school pencil to return to the basics, to feel the friction that every word creates on the paper.
Mr. Crow lines up new number 2 school pencils on his writing desk, and, ritualistically, he sharpens each pencil with his pocket knife, at his desk by the window.
Wooden shavings fall into the dust bin he holds between his knees. He concentrates on the sound that the knife and the wood make. He inhales the friction heat and the mixed odor of ebony and clay that rises from the tip of the pencil.
Every time Mr. Crow sharpens his number 2 school pencils, every time he is in writer’s block, a white cat comes to the window, attracted by the calm, regular rhythm of the pencil sharpening. Then it sits by the window and stares at Mr. Crow’s hands steadily sharpening the number 2 school pencils. The white cat is mesmerized by the movements of Mr. Crow’s hands, the way the pencil is tilted, how the wooden shavings shed off the pencil like autumn leaves. The white cat becomes cross-eyed as it gets absorbed into Mr. Crow’s pencils.
One night, when Mr. Crow is sharpening his pencils, not knowing what to write as usual, the white cat comes to his window as usual. This time, the cat is so mesmerized by Mr. Crow’s pencil sharpening, that it meows in an ecstatic yet scary voice, turning upside down, lying on its back. Mr. Crow opens the window for the first time. The white cat presses its cheek hard against the pencil in Mr. Crow’s hand, sniffs the ebony and clay, licks its tip, and starts to bite and eat the pencil.
Half an hour later, the white cat finishes all the number 2 school pencils on Mr. Crow’s desk. It looks up at Mr. Crow and burps three times and starts to tell him the following story:
Here I omit the story for the editorial purpose.
The dawn comes and the cat finishes its story. Of course, Mr. Crow wrote down its story frantically. He publishes it. It becomes a national best-seller. It is translated into thirty-six languages. Since Mr. Crow has no writer’s block any more, he doesn’t sharpen pencils. He writes with his new Mont Blanc. He has a dozen Mont Blancs. Since he doesn’t sharpen number 2 pencils any more, the white cat doesn’t visit his study window.
Five years go by.
Now Mr. Crow has published ten more novels. He has moved into a mansion by the lake. He lives there all by himself.
One full-moon night in October, the white cat visits Mr. Crow’s studio window, though he is not sharpening his pencils any more. The cat stares hard at Mr. Crow through the window pane.
Mr. Crow senses right away that the white cat wants him to repay for his success. It must be going to demand, he is afraid, his first-born child. But he doesn’t have any children since he doesn’t have any wife or mistresses. So Mr. Crow tells the white cat in his gentlest way possible that he cannot offer the cat his first-born child. The cat stares at him without a word and walks away.
Since that night, the white cat starts to invite itself to Mr. Crow’s window.
“What do you want?” Mr. Crow asks, “My soul? My money? Tell me!”
But the cat says nothing. Its face shows no expression. It stares at him and goes away.
Two years later, Mr. Crow finds the white cat dead under the fallen maple leaves in his back yard. It was then when he realized that the white cat wanted more pencils.
More number 2 pencils for the white cat.
But it was too late.
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