If this reads like a lunatic essay, that is probably because it was born on a thread on Krazitivity, a Nigerian literary listserve, on which Obayemi Onafuwa asked the innocent question: 'Let us start with the idea and the first draft. Where does the idea come from for a story? The original germ. From childhood? While you're in the shower? From the Daily Times?' Because it was originally intended for an in-group, a few (blue-text) references may seem opaque. Don't click, just keep your cursor over the blue asterisk for enlightenment. The passages in red are actual excerpts from the finished story, Killing my Neighbours' Cat. Sorry about the colour coding, which may make people who are not neccessarily cat-lovers see red.

By the way , I should also mention that this is a work of fiction and no pets were harmed, or in danger of actual harm in the creation of this literature.

I was puttering about, not doing anyone any harm, when I suddenly discovered a bone lying innocently in the long grass. I picked it up and studied it carefully. "I may be killing my neighbours' cat any day soon." It said. Now I correctly identified this bone as the first sentence of a piece of writing wishing to be reconstructed. An Igbo thought flashed though my mind, which has since defied my attempts at translation: Nmadu ga tututa kwa ife!

At first glance, it seemed to me that this bone belonged to a literary species whose further acquaintanceship I did not wish to make, whether in the form of a bone, or in the form of a fully reconstructed beast on my desk. This was probably the sort of reconstruction that sends a writer thrashing around for pseudonyms to insulate himself from the work of his own hands. I therefore held the bone, with some distaste, over that mental shredder in the skies.

Unfortunately, at that point in time I had a difficult piece of work on my desk. You know how it is, surely, when you have a tough assignment outstanding and suddenly, that lawn - which has been growing furiously since the first rains of the year - suddenly has to be cut immediately? So my engines of procrastination began to aspirate gently.

Yet, 'I may be killing my neighbours' cat any day soon!' The words dripped with bald malice, suggesting more wicked things to come. Now, although I'm no saint, I have a strong aversion to hate literature. Of course in the realms of orature, I am not above dispensing the odd spiel on this theme. Like my outburst during that bus trip in the course of which a fellow commuter's dog helped itself to the bacon in my shopping bag... Still, to actually sit down and create literature on this theme? Surely there were better things to do?

Yes, like the tough assignment on my desk.

So I took the bone, on strictly probationary terms, mark, to the reconstruction chambers. My interrogation of the bone commenced: 'Who born you?' I asked suspiciously.

'I suppose you are enquiring after my antecedents,' said the bone huffily, 'I'm quarter-caste; three of my grandparents are essays, but one of them is a short story.'

I nodded thoughtfully, the bone had clearly observed that most of its companions on my computer's hard drive were short stories. It was the old literary trick: the same old Inspiration masquerading as poetry for poets, essays for essayists and tales for storytellers. Despite its clearly essayist features this bone was slipping me a reason not to hit the Delete key. I was dealing with a paleontological artefact endued with the mental presence of the cunning tortoise of African folklore. I had to tread warily. My questioning had to be more subtle. 'What hairstyle are you partial to?' I asked.

'I'm not a skinhead, if that is what you mean.'

'What is your political affiliation?' I pressed, dropping all pretence at subterfuge, 'Are you Fascist, Nazi or extremist...? Do you believe in the securing of your goals by violence? Do you endorse terrorism? Are you...'

'I am completely apolitical.' said the bone placidly. 'And I did not say I will kill the cat, I said I may. I am open to persuasion on the point.' he hesitated significantly, 'Are you by any chance an advocate?'

'That is neither here nor there. The point is that you may, kill the cat. Why? Cats have their uses in this universe you know.'

'Name one.'

'Well for one, with a cat in the house you won't have a rat problem. Everyone knows that cats eat rats.'

'Old cant,' sniffed the bone. 'you obviously live in a different universe from my neighbours' cat. Hungry cats eat rats. My neighbours' obese cat keeps a couple of rats as pets. Are you by chance an advocate for cats?'

I frowned. Despite my years in cross-examination, a common bone was besting me, pulling the right egotistic and sarcastic levers in nimble sequence, employing the Flamboyant Non-Sequitur to devastating effect. I swallowed, feeling something of the panic that Goliath must have felt when he realised that this was not going to be one of those other days. I back-tracked carefully, 'When I asked, "who born you?" I meant your nationality.'

'Are you a racist?' demanded the bone aggressively.

'No I'm a Nigerian writer,' I said, choosing my words carefully, wondering if an Association for the Protection of the Rights of Literary Bones had also emerged from the bureaucratic woodwork. It was just the sort of thing Chenjerai Hove would get up to. ' I prefer to take my themes from fair proximity to the lower reaches of the River Niger.'

'Una no get pussycat for River Niger?' asked the bone in the best rendition of Nigeria's Warri blend of pidgin I had heard in years.

I changed tack furiously. 'Have you ever been treated for a psychiatric malady?' I asked.

The bone paused.

Aha! I thought.

Then it sighed and delivered the sucker punch. 'Ah, actually I use the same psychoanalyst as you.'

I gave up and pulled up the keyboard. Ten minutes later I had fleshed out the bone's first paragraph, reuniting it with its kith-and-kin in a series of terse psychotic lines:

I may be killing my neighbours' cat any day now. Many and various are the reasons why this will come to be. Lately I have had these flashes of hate, of envy even, which lesser men than me would have used to foreclose on the life of their neighbours' cat. But I will restrain myself; until I marshall my reasons, chief of which I set out now in serried rank.

'It's an essay!' I hissed in disgust.

'That's what the reader will think, to start with,' agreed the fortified bone, 'but with your storytelling skills, imagine its potential.'

'It's a psychotic, pompous and ponderous essay!'

'Not pompous, humorous.' corrected the bone, 'and "ponderous" is just my style. Not all of us can be nifty and svelte. Do you want to reconstruct me or keep regurgitating yourself? If Obayemi discovered me....' The bone tailed off, unsure how far the competition card could take it.

My finger stroked the Delete key. I mused. 'A list! "Serried rank!" Such high-faluting language, and all that follows is a common list. How can a writer recite a list of psychotic reasons and call it a short story?'

'But every list has to end,' said the bone, 'and at the end you can put in the Twist in the Tail that converts it into a short story.' It paused, and added snidely. 'of course you can always go back to your waiting assignment...'

So I wrote the bone's first reason. Under my breath I was heard to mutter, 'Unoma Azuah will serve me up for her morning lectures!'

'It's not that bad is it?' said the bone to me as I glowered at the First Reason why it wanted to kill its neighbours' cat, 'you've managed to slip in the Kuwaiti and Iraqi wars. That was brill! "the interests of neighbours should not be weighed on finer scales than the interests of self." That wasn't in my original anatomy.'

'That's what worries me.' I replied, I right-clicked the icon of the 'story'-so-far and brought up a menu. 'I've never pulled the Iraqi war into my fiction before now.' I scrolled down the menu to 'Delete'.

The precocious bone saw its entire ethereal existence swirling at the drainplug of the sump of a digital sewer. It knew I held the chain and had the will. 'Guess the Second Reason why I want to kill that bloody pussycat!' It shouted urgently.

'I can't.' I said. 'Tell me.'

'My neighbour's cat has a name!'

'So?'

'A pussycat has a name!' it exclaimed, manifesting an animus that was cringe-making in the extreme, 'I know hundreds of cats that are called 'Pssst!' 'catcat,' or 'that calico cat'; I know thousands of cats that are summoned by two snaps of their owners' angry fingers, suffering no emotional harm in consequence; but this pussycat has a name any human child would, well, die for!'

'Which is?' I asked, foolishly dismissing the Delete menu.

The bone simpered: 'I've quite forgotten...'

I sighed and continued its reconstruction.

When I had reconstructed its Fourth Reason, I pushed away my keyboard in disgust. 'This is just petty!'

'What?' asked the bone, innocently.

'"My neighbours' cat is fat. Clearly animals also have a right to their own obesity. It is the fate of the chickens that we eat. It is the fate of the pigs that we eat. It is also the fate of my neighbours' cat..." I mean,' I cried, 'how trite is that!'

'I'm trite,' agreed the bone, 'I'm just a bone, but OgaWriter, with your intelligent satire, you can juxtapose the rotundity of my neighbours' cat with the fat shares my neighbours hold in those companies that skin and torture live hamsters for drug research...'

'They have such shares?' I asked in amazement.

'Two hundred and fifty thousand of them.' said the gossip of a bone. 'All blue chip and quoted on the London Stock Exchange. They are the crown of his investment jewels.'

I continued its reconstruction.

The Fifth Reason caused me to blow my top: '"My neighbours' cat is next in line to inherit a million pounds. I have seen my neighbours' will. it is a list of assets and assets and assets and not a single debt.... these will devolve to their cat as soon as my neighbours die." This is rank jealousy.' I cried.

'Have I denied it?' said the bone placidly.

I took a deep breath, 'I will not stoop this low! Jealousy is sin, it is a base emotion, humanity is not edified by the indulgence of...'

'I really wish Obayemi had discovered me,' said the bone petulantly, 'he won't be preaching at me now. Do you know that that fat pussycat is going to inherit a villa and vineyard in the south of France?'

'It is?'

'Oho.'

I continued its reconstruction.

'This is the last reason,' warned the bone, 'number 7; make it count.'

'Why does the fact that the cat has a tomb upset you?' I asked.

'You won't believe it,' grumbled the bone, 'my neighbours hired an award-winning artist and animal psychologist to spend a week bonding with their cat, getting to know its favourite colours, its music, it likes...'

'For what?

'To paint the murals in the cat's tomb! It's a real pet paradise, that tomb.'

'And that's a reason why you want to kill the cat? You're sick. You should change your psychoanalyst, you.'

'I'm doing the cat a favour.' said the bone.

'This is really rich!'

'Cats aren't human,' it explained, 'you humans: you claim heaven is wonderful but you fight tooth-and-nail to stay in this evil world. Cats aren't quite so hypocritical. My neighbour's cat has seen its tomb and believe me, it wants to go there now.'

'And leave its million-pound inheritance?'

'Pussycats can't think beyond the next plate of catfood; between its cat's dinner and that tomb, all my neighbours' cat wants is that tomb.'

'And what business of yours is that?'

'Cats don't understand the complexities of the CIDEs.'

'Decides?'

'The CIDEs: HomiCIDE, suiCIDE, genoCIDE, patriCIDE, matri...'

'I get the point.'

'Cats only kill when they're hungry, ergo, they cannot kill themselves. That's where I come in. By the way, thanks for the reconstruction, you were a bit clumsy... but you'll do.'

'We're not done yet, there's still the Twist in the Tail...'

'I'm reconstructed enough thank you, I don't need a tail. You're the writer. Any gimmick you use to keep your readers happy is your business. I've given you the characters and the conflict you do the rest.'

'Characters!' I raged. 'I haven't even got a name for you or your neighbours! All I have is a pussycat called Winkies! And you want me to do plot and crisis and resolution in one paragraph! Am I a writer or a magician? Look, we're in this together, if you don't continue with me I'm stopping right now!'

'We'll see what Krazitivity has to say about that.'

'What does Krazitivity have to do with this?'

'Just the other day you called one of their stories a Character Sketch masquerading as Short Story. Let's see what they will think of this List of yours - as it currently stands.'

With that, the treacherous bone settled into a terminal sort of silence in the anal regions of the reconstructed beast on my desk. Because it was more than halfway done, the Delete button now required a massive pressure rather beyond the resources of my thumb; yet the work ahead was more onerous than the one behind. That morning, I'd had a difficult assignment on my desk, now I had two. And the title of the latest one alone, 'Killing my Neighbours' Cat', was enough to get animal-loving arsonists on my case. I sighed miserably. There had to be easier ways to make a living...

SATURDAY EVENING

I went to get a drink, which was how I first noticed it, brooding between my volumes of Things Fall Apart and Call me by my Rightful Name. It was vaguely familiar, but for all that it had a professional poise and profile that was all its own. It was another bone. I hesitated and drew it out.

'I may be killing my psychoanalyst's dog any day soon...' it said,

© 2004 Chuma Nwokolo, Jr.