The Third Law

vivianimbriotis | Dec. 3, 2023, 5:15 p.m.

1

Observe the black pitch of the night, as the rain buckets down. The forest is thick here, but no canopy could deter this downpour. To the left, note the squat cliff face, barely the height of two men. Water drips from the shale, drip-drip-drip, vertical rivulets twisting and writhing. You might expect thunder, but this is a dense rain with no time for such things, so heavy is the deluge. The night is absolute – no moon can be seen, no lightning leaps across the sky to pull back the curtain.

To the right there is a tiny path, barely more than a game trail amongst the dense vegetation, muddy and rapidly becoming a creek.

And between them the hut. Roughly hewn wood, planks not quite opposed such that a golden light leaks out, as through a badly covered lantern. The door is not quite set right on its hinges, tilted askew to the left. From inside is a quiet, melodic tinkling sound, barely audible over the pitter-patter. As you come closer and slip somehow through the cracks between door and frame, the inside is revealed.

A man lies upon the bed, grey beard trimmed, eyes closed. His skin is worn by the sun. His brown robes are covered in patchwork repairs. He lies there, breathing shallowly, a quiet dignity upon him.

The bed, like the rest of the hut, is spartan. There is a straw excuse for a mattress atop a simple wooden frame. There is a single chair, and a fireplace, the latter the source of the gilded illumination bleeding out into the night. Atop the fireplace is a simple stove and chimney. The floor is of clean earth and straw. Leaning up against the doorway is a staff of yew wood.

There are rafters, from which hang herbs the likes of which you have not seen before, in quantities that seem excessive. There are onions and garlic likewise hung.

There is a single table. Upon it lies several strange things – a small stone of the same ruddy mineral as the fireplace, a pot of ink and a broken quill, and a music box that issues forth the mechanical melody.

And there is a cat, who does not know what to do. She meows. She walks in a small circle, and meows again. There is no response from the man.

She leaps up, a lithe motion, landing on his chest. He does not move. It occurs to the cat that his slow breathing has stopped. She does not know what this means, but it has not happened before. She curls into a ball upon his still chest, and filled with unease goes to sleep. Her dreams are filled with the sound of the music box.

 

2

It is a barn owl. She recognizes it by scent the moment she wakes. She is unclear how it gained access to the hut, but she is filled with fury. She paces across the floor, staring up at the rafters, so high above. Its eyes glint down at her.

To make matters worse, the stove has begun to misbehave. She had never before taken note of the stove. It was not her job – the man handled that business. Her job was to curl up in front of it and soak in the heat. But now, it has died down to embers and the man shows no signs of rousing to kindle it.

The rain continues. It is morning now, but such an overcast and dreary one that it scarcely makes a difference.

She considers the problem of the Barn Owl. She cannot easily climb up to the rafters since the man disposed of her favorite curtains. She cannot leap up to the rafters from the ground. She eyes the yew staff in the corner.

From the top of the staff, she kicks and sails upwards, a graceful arc that ends with a desperate scramble half-atop the rafter – she is going to fall. Her claws come out, she scrabbles and twists and clings and then the owl has taken flight – towards her! She is buffeted and lashes out and there is a screech. The owl sweeps its wings downwards and lofts away for a moment, unsure. She has her footing, now. She stalks forward, a gymnast on her beam. In her heart she is roaring. She leaps for the bird but it has found its way out, a loose beam near the ceiling.

She looks down at her man, safe now from prying eyes. He has not moved. She jumps, liquid poured from a glass, and alights upon the table, knocking the music box to the floor. The melody cuts off.

 

--

 

“You see,” the man said to the cat, as he wound up for another swing, “we need a little part.” Crack, as he struck the stone with the chisel. “It’s called—,” Crack, “The law of synecdoche”. Crack – and a piece of the stone chimney, no larger than a coin, came away. “Aha!”

The cat did not answer, but walked between the man’s legs, warming herself by rubbing against him. The man had filled the fireplace with wood and kindling, but it remained unlit, and the air had a chill.

“It’s the first law. The Art can be worked upon an object if a small piece of it is taken. As for the part, so for the whole.” The cat remained unimpressed by this.

The quality of the man’s voice was unclear, as memories so quickly become. Had it been that deep? Had his movements been so sure, so considered? The cat was not sure. She remembers following him outside. He scratched between her ears as he fetched pulled forth from his patchwork robes a glass lens.

“Look at this! If we bring together the sunlight…” he said, setting down the stone fragment and folding the lens over it. “…as for the part…”

Behind them, inside the hut, there was a whoof as the fire sprang to life.

 

3

The owl is gone, and suddenly there is nothing to do. The cat picks at some straw on the floor. She strides about. She looks up at the man’s body. She cleans her tail with her tongue. She picks at the straw again. She is beginning to suspect that the man will not come back. The body has begun to change. The scent is different. All warmth has long ago fled. She suspects he will not speak to her again.

He laid food out for her in the corner every evening. This morning, some scant remnants constitute her breakfast. She eats a little, then sits and contemplates what to do next. Silence descends. She dissolves into it. Cats, unlike humans, cry tears only to remove irritants of the eye. She does not cry.

 

4

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The ceiling is leaking. Its from the same loose board through which the owl came. And it is cold. She misses the music box.

She grabs the lens in her mouth and takes it outside, then returns with the stone fragment. The sun is thin, and she cannot make heads nor tails of what to do next. She sits.

 

---

 

“I couldn’t save her,” he said, tears dripping down his face. She did not understand. Cats do not cry. “She had a consumptive fever, and for all my Art I could not save her.”

She vocalized, murmured, leaped onto his lap. He stroked her but did not look at her, enamoured by the wall. “That’s the last rule, you know. The third law. Death lies beyond the purview of the Art. But she was so young. Only thirty. And I sat with her while she died and I could do nothing.”

The cat did not know what to do. She licked away the tears that were clearly causing such agitation. Her man huffed a laugh and scratched her behind the ears, eyes still wet. She purred. Much better.

 

5

She scratched the body that used to be her man. It did not bleed. It was too old for that. But some friable material came away upon her claws. She cut and tore until she had a chunk of tissue. She did the same with the wall, scratch scratch scratch bite bite until wood pulp mingled with her bundle of flesh. Lithely, she walked it up to the fireplace. With her will upon it, she committed it to the Art Magic and dropped it into the embers.

As a favour, please observe the hut one last time. The rain has stopped, and it is a bleary sort of morning. Fog abounds, makes ghosts amidst the threes. A weak sun colours everything with a dun fairytale radiance.

The hut is ablaze. Wood creaks, pops, collapses. Flames crackle. A gentle wind brings a blast of heat and the scent of woodsmoke, painful to the eyes. The fire casts otherworldly shadows against the shale cliff face off to the right. To the left is a path, little more than a game trail. Along it stalks a black cat; sleek and fluid, bound for somewhere less than here.