D) Chapter 3

3.
Richard Querulous lived above an Italian restaurant in a small, two
bedroom flat that he shared only with his cat who, by terms of his
tenancy agreement, should not have been living there at all. He had
long ago given up all attempts to find a real flatmate. He had
interviewed people some months ago but had found no-one to his liking,
so the second bedroom had remained uninhabited until the cat, whose
name was Sian, had found out about it and claimed it as her own. Now
Richard did not think it likely she would oblige to vacate it, and
since she was a large and often vicious feline whom Richard suspected
to be descended either from wildcats or an escaped panther, he had no
intention of forcing her to do so. Previous attempts to force her to do
things, such as to swallow worming tablets or to move off his bed so he
could go to sleep, had only resulted in several deep and painful
scratches and one trip to Casualty. The moggy was a law unto herself.
She was miraculously transformed into a sweet and lovable creature
around mealtimes however, unless Richard deigned not to feed her for
some reason, in which case she would cause trouble in that way only
cats are capable of doing.

Sian began meowing loudly as soon as Richard got through the front
door. 'Sshhh!' He warned her, 'Remember you're not supposed to be
here.' She stopped briefly and wandered a little further down the hall
before starting again. Richard sighed, closed the front door, and
obediently followed the hungry feline into the kitchen. 'I don't know
why I bother with you sometimes' he said as he was opening the tin of
cat food 'You only want me when you're hungry.' Sian stared rather
blankly as if to say 'just get on it with you oaf, I'm hungry' before
moving herself over to the food bowl and meowing again in expectation.
'Why can't you be like all the other cats?' Richard continued whilst
reaching for a fork 'Why can't you give something back to me?' The cat,
evidently having heard all this before, looked away into middle
distance and remained quiet. 'I'm putting myself on the line just
having you here you know, if the landlady found out she'd?.well you
know what she'd do.' Sian responded with a loud, more insistent meow,
telling Richard in no uncertain terms this delay was intolerable, was
being duly noted and would not be forgotten. 'Here's your damn food
then.'

Having fed the world's most ungrateful feline Richard retired to the
living room and turned on the TV. It was a bare room tidy only because
it contained so few items. A small portable TV (Richard wanted a larger
one but was loath to pay the price), a sofa and a small circular table
with two chairs were the only items of furniture. Decorating was not
Richard's strongpoint. He liked to think he was being 'Spartan' but
really he was just being 'cheap.'

Zombified by another day's work, Richard dozed in front of the TV for
half-an-hour or so before getting up to make his dinner. This would
consist tonight of microwave pizza. The cat passed him in the hall and
made a half-hearted swipe at his legs before moving off to her room to
sleep, but Richard was desensitised to such violence by now. The flat
was supposedly soundproofed so that Richard could not hear the noise
from the restaurant below, but every night the din from the downstairs
diners seeped through Richard's floors and made him feel as if he were
hearing voices in his head. Tonight it was evidently somebody's
birthday, again. It was always somebody's birthday, and why oh why
could they not invent a new song? 'Fuckers' Richard muttered to himself
as he waited for his pizza to cook.

After his evening meal Richard usually took it upon himself to fall
asleep, but tonight was different, tonight he had a project. Fishing
'The New Eschatologist' out of his bag Richard sat back down on the
sofa and began to inspect it for any information that might help him
with its origins. The publisher was called 'Fourier' - Richard had not
heard of them - and the book had been published that year, 2003. Most
interestingly however, Richard could find no ISBN number or other
information. Perhaps a page had simply been ripped out? Skipping to the
very end of the book Richard looked for more information about the
publishers, but found nothing more. As he was flicking through the last
pages of the book however he had noticed something curious. Although it
was common for the last three or four pages in a book to be blank, in
this volume the last ten or twenty appeared to be so. Examining it more
closely Richard discovered that over fifty leaves at the back of the
book were without any words upon them. It was then that Richard
discovered the most curious fact about this curious little book.
Finding the last page with printed type upon it, Richard read:

'Richard flicked through the last fifty or so pages of the book and
found they were all blank. Then, locating the last page of printed text
in the volume, found that it seemed very much to be narrating exactly
what he had just done.'

Though there was no-one there to see it, Richard's already deathly pale
face whitened further, and he began to feel rather ill. He turned back
a leaf and found another two, this time full, printed pages seemingly
about him. Looking back further he read with in increasing astonishment
a frighteningly accurate description of his day so far. It was only
when he turned the first page of this most astonishing of chapters that
the full horror and absurdity of his situation dawned on him. The
chapter was entitled 'The Really Quite Avoidable Death of Richard
Querulous.'