Songs of Madness: Quarantine Day Four

 “On rare occasions he showed flashes of stagnant intelligence. But his brain was so rotted with drink and dissolute living that whenever he put it to work it behaved like an old engine that had gone haywire from being dipped in lard.”

—Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary

    Day four of quarantine:

    I write to you on the verge of madness and total mental collapse from overwhelming social isolation.  The human being, by nature, is designed as a social creature.  I am more adept than most, having spent seven years developing and honing loner, misanthropic, and anti-social tendencies.  But at least I had a job where I could shoot the shit with coworkers and listen to the humdrum idiocy of the common customer.  Now I am relegated to re-reading books, listening to podcasts, watching television, drinking myself into a stupor, and having full-blown philosophical discussions with my cat.  Human contact exists solely via a text message, Facebook, and the occasional phone call.

    This morning I awoke with a sordid pain throbbing in my lower back.  On Friday, my mother ordered three 38 pound packages of cat litter and a 40 pound case of water from Wal-Mart that I had to unload from my truck.  Being in the initial stages of COVID, I did not want to tire myself out walking with repeated trips to and from the vehicle.  So, being a very well-renown idiot, I stacked all them sum-a-bitches up in two loads and carried them into the laundry room, throwing out my back in the process.  The soreness in my lower back has outweighed any of the symptoms of COVID by far.  

    Unable to sit for any length of time, I paced away the morning.  Mr. Wiggles, the calico cat a then-girlfriend brought home for me 15 years ago, sat perched on the dining room table vocalizing her demands for food.  I decided we should sing a Dropkick Murphy’s song together.

    “I’M SHIPPING UP TO BOSTON!” I sang, then squeezed the cat, who sang the backup vocals of the following verse.

    “MEOWWWOOWW!”

    “I’M SHIPPING UP TO BOSTON!”

    [Squeezes cat]

    “MEOWWWOOWW!”

    After a few recitations of the chorus line, Mr. Wiggles grew sore with me and hissed, swatted, and bit me.  She jumped down from the table and disappeared into the other end of the house.  Fortunately I had another victim to torment with my slowly dissipating sanity.

    I have had two other cats after Mr. Wiggles, one who ran away on Halloween about ten years ago (affectionately named “Kitty #2”), and the other who replaced him: a tortoiseshell I called “Kitty #3.”  Kitty #3 sat on the couch in the living room.  Highly intelligent, she recognizes her name and verbally replies to it every time it is uttered.  

    “Kitty!  Is there such a thing as free-will or is the world deterministic?”

    “Meooow!” she replied with a confused tone.

    “What do you mean you don’t know?”

    “Hasn’t all evidence pointed to confirm that we are just a series of preconditions, as the universe is as a whole, and that free-will is just a well-established myth—a byproduct of outdated Judeo-Christian beliefs?”

    [No reply]

    “Kitty!”

    “Meow?”

    “Why are you ignoring the question?”

    “Meoooow.”

    “Do you wish to argue for a compatibilist perspective?  Have you been reading Daniel Dennett again?”

    “Meoow.”

    “I knew it.  You traitor.  You just can’t stand that your choices are not your own and that free-will is an illusion.”

    [No reply]

    “You know what…if you’re just going to evade the question I’m just going to end this conversation right here and now.  I’m done with you, Kitty!  I’m done!”

    “Meowwww.” She replies, then stretches out and wants to be petted.

    “No!” I angrily screamed.  “You scratch your own damn head.”

    I walked back into the kitchen and Mr. Wiggles was perched on the table again.  I reached out to pet her, asking “you want to sing again, Wiggly-poof?”  

    She hissed and stretched out her paws to swat at my approach.

    My parents watched on, wide-eyed, like rubber-neckers slowing down traffic to gawk at a wreck.  

    “Are you alright?”

    “I’m fine.  Why do you ask?”

    “Oh no reason.”

    

    

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