The World's End

The shabby tavern seemed the most lonely dwelling the cats had ever encountered, stark against a darkening sky, on the very edge of a blighted wilderness.   Or were they influenced by the despairing, fur tingling  gull cry of the whelk-monger whose barrow huddled in a far corner of the car park?
With some trepidation the pair approached the pub door.   Potkin pushed it open and Josie followed him through, staying very close.   The heat from within pressed pathetically against their advance and the thick pall of tobacco smoke that had been languishing beneath the low ceiling made a rush for the open portal.
Before them a stone flagged room brimmed with peripatetic humanity.   Travellers, traders and tinkers jostled at the bar.   Gypsies, students and hawkers huddled in noisy groups at long, sturdy oak tables, clinking and clattering pewter or horn tankards, leather jugs of bitter ale with frothing heads.   Lone wanderers and preachers perched at the ends of the benches, cradling pots of dark, densely headed porter.    Three shepherds stood leaning on their market crooks close by an inglenook fire at the far end of the room.   A singular, scarred and weathered mercenary soldier in black leathers fingered the pommel of his workmanlike dagger as he weighed up a chattering troupe of itinerant entertainers.    He doubted they owned anything worth mugging them for.    In one corner a group of oil stained bikers had made a pyramid of their helmets.   From beneath one of the tables a grey and shaggy lurcher eyed the two cats suspiciously, whilst a large and heavily built man in a soiled apron emerged from behind the bar and approached them purposefully.
“What have we here?”
He scraped some scraps of mutton from an abandoned trencher of stew onto a cracked, ironstone plate and placed it on the floor.
“Are you two hungry?”
Potkin had been feeling for some time that one more shrimp paste sandwich might seriously damage his taste buds and was very fond of lamb.   He ate quickly.   Josie was watching the grizzled lurcher, which had left its place under the table and was strolling towards them.   It took a piece of meat from close to Potkin and chewed casually.   Potkin growled uncertainly, but Josie felt a friendlier approach might work.   They could always flee for their lives if it failed.
“Hello.   My, aren’t you a big dog?” he tried, though it came out a bit squeaky.
“Don’t you want any of this?” Potkin asked of Josie without looking up, “Shall I finish it?”
“I’ll have a sandwich later.” replied Josie in a hoarse whisper, “You do know we’ve attracted the attention of a D O G?”
Potkin finished eating and looked up.
“What are you two wastrels after?” asked the dog in a gruff, laconic woof, “I suppose you expect a bed for the night.”
“We are...” said Potkin, “...seeking accommodation and this is a hostelry.”
“Come over by the fire.   My name’s Spike, by the way.”
A collie was sprawled across the front of the fireplace and eyed the approaching group as if it required herding.   One of the shepherds removed a corn-cob pipe slowly from the corner of his mouth,
“Ambrose, let them be!”
Ambrose moved over and the four animals sat in a row on the edge of the hearth staring into the glowing logs.   Spike threw a glance round the crowded room.
“These misfits will drink all night and I personally wouldn’t trust any of them whilst I slept.   It’s not safe to stay here.”
Josie looked worried. The warmth from the fire was making him drowsy.
“We must find somewhere to spend the night.” said Potkin.
“There I can help.   If you follow the footpath down the hill,” advised Spike “You will come to an old water-mill.   The miller runs a guest house and if you don’t dawdle you’ll reach it before dark.”
“And they’ll put us up?”   Josie just wanted to be sure they were not being led astray.
Spike appeared sincere, “Everyone is made welcome there.”
“In that case” said Josie, “I’ll just have one of my sandwiches before we set off.   Is there a litter tray I can use?”
“Out the back.” indicated Spike.
After Josie had eaten, and whilst he was away relieving himself, Potkin collected their things together. After several minutes of scratching and scraping from Josie they were both ready.   Potkin said, “We’ll be off then. It’s been interesting meeting you.”
“Remember, the path down the hill.” reiterated Spike, “And keep your wits about you.   When you leave here you pass beyond the pale!”
Potkin looked at the sand filled zinc bucket by the door and marvelled that a domestic receptacle should be imbued with such awful mystery.   As their tails disappeared through the doorway Ambrose looked at Spike and a wry smile lit his bearded face.
“Well they’re in for a surprise tonight.”
“Experience is the spice of life.” laughed Spike.

The path was thankfully easy to follow even in the gathering gloom.   It was somewhat overgrown, but straight and mostly tarmaced.   As they launched out on their travels once more, the retreating sunlight seemed to suffuse their surroundings with an other-worldly air.   In a field to one side of the path a rectangle of water reflected the sky.   Chipped and scarred stone flags edged the plunge pool and there was a surrounding colonnade of mostly tumbled, classical, fluted pillars topped with carved foliage.  Marble, limbless nudes stared dead-eyed from niches in a partial flint and red tile wall.   The ruin of a barrel-vaulted roof hung insecurely above the edifice, worn stone steps and outbuildings crumbled amongst the wild flowers in the surrounding meadow.   Two smaller pools glinted through the grass.   It was a surrealist scene, in near darkness, under a sky that still held onto the failing light.
“The outlands are peopled with the ghosts of past generations.” uttered Josie profoundly, wondering how such an observation had sprung unaided into his conscious brain.
 As Josie and Potkin descended the hill, aged and intermittent iron railings allowed a view of a many storied, skeletal Victorian building.   Cast iron balconies with various shades of faded green paint peeling away from encrusted dark brown rust scars lined the southern, glazed brick façade and the last light of the sun, reflecting red off the undersides of clouds shone through empty windows with the intensity of shell-shocked eyes.   Above the empty doorway a legend in contrasting brick read FEVER HOSPITAL.   They watched a form materialise into the gaping entrance, silhouetted against the dying sun.   It stepped, or swept forward, a figure in soiled white with tangled silver hair and parchment skin, scrawny arms outstretched towards them as the hag gathered speed.   She opened her mouth as if to entreat, or maybe just howl, but there was no sound.   The mouth grew and the unheard scream shuddered the earth.
Invisible lifeforms rustled nearby and a small black creature squeaked as it swooped and fluttered low overhead.   The two cats broke into a mad helter-skelter, tumbling and crashing into each other, looking neither up nor back until they were sure that they were far from the apparition.   After a particularly dramatic rolling fall they were both flat on their stomachs gasping for air.   As they steadied they could hear running water, glimpse, through a group of trees, the pale glint of a still, expansive pond and beyond, the soft amber glow of artificial light through unshuttered windows.   They had found the mill.

A looming wooden wheel clunked and creaked as it turned slowly under a  stream of water that emerged, splashing from a brick arched tunnel below the mill-pond.   The mill rose storey upon storey in brick and timber, a jumble of extensions and additions grown up over the centuries, roofed at a craze of unlikely angles, without style or logic.    Dormer windows peeped shyly from under shingle, slate and thatch.   Pots of every shape topped an assortment of chimneys.
Round the front of the building a crimson glow cut into the darkness from a warp framed window of small paned, thick, blown glass, that pierced the frontage to the side of a low Georgian doorway.    Within they could see an art deco table lamp with a red handkerchief thrown over it.   Perhaps the hanky was being dried, pondered Potkin.
They knocked at the unlatched door and stepped in.   A wooden staircase stretched upward before them, as tall narrow and rickety as the building itself.   To their right was a desk with a bell and a man sitting half asleep, a newspaper dropped into his lap.   Before they could ding the bell, much to Josie's disappointment, the man spoke, whilst a wildly gyrating cigarette, lodged in the corner of his mouth, shed ash onto the threadbare oriental carpet.
“Straight up the stairs to the top.   If you want anything just call.   I’m Dusty Miller.”
“Not Windy?” enquired Josie.
“It’s a water mill."
The miller cum concierge turned his attention back to the newspaper.
Josie and Potkin started to ascend. Every step groaned, the banisters wobbled. At each landing the stairs turned and long, dark, wood panelled corridors stretched away past countless secretive doorways.   The patchy illumination from low wattage bare bulbs hid more than it revealed.
After the fifth floor the stairs became narrower and steeper, Josie began to wheeze.   One last flight and from the landing above a row of bright young faces looked down with pointed ears and neatly preened whiskers.   as the pair reached the top landing at least half a dozen cats rushed them, giggling.
“I’m Frufru. This is Justine. That’s Lulu. She’s Fluffybum...”
“How long are you staying?"
“What’s your name?”
“My, oh my!”
“Calm down, girls and give them some room.”   The instructions came from a portly, middle-aged, colour-point Siamese with tattoos on her fore arms and buttocks.
“Can we help, boys?”
“We need somewhere to spend the night.” said Potkin.
“We normally rent by the hour,” replied the tattooed cat, “but I’m sure we can accommodate you.”
“I’m very tired.”  This from Josie, “We’ve had quite a busy day.”
“Fifi, Justine, Claudette, fix him a room... and make sure he gets anything he wants.”
She turned back to Potkin, “You come and have a slug or two with me and then Fluffybum can put you to bed.”
They sipped turkish tumblers of clouded absinthe and talked long into the night about Potkin and Josie’s adventure and why anyone should want a butterfly tattooed on their bottom.
Soon after he had turned in there came a tap, tap at Potkin’s bedroom door.

The Pleasure Garden

Facing the cats at the end of the avenue of trees was a towering gateway.  Tall pillars supported a stone arch surmounted by a bronze lion with Rastafarian mane and a rod like tail, poker-straight and thrusting horizontally from its behind.   The gates themselves were of finely wrought iron, pitted, encrusted with rust and firmly padlocked.   On the left hand gate was a weathered sign, “No hawkers, peddlers, tinkers, travellers, clergy, lawyers, vagabonds.”   A similar sign on the other gate continued “No traders, mongers, sailors, beggars, hawkers, actors and definitely no cats!”
“Welcoming sort of place.” observed Josie.
“Let’s go in.” from Potkin.   Josie put on his sternest look, and Potkin became sheepish.
“Only kidding. We’ll skirt round, there's a pathway down here.”
They wound gently down hill until they entered onto a sunken track.   A bank and high hedge hemmed them in on their left, to their right was an ancient wall.   The brickwork was chipped and stained and overhung with ivy, several disused gateways were sealed with bricks barely younger than the wall itself.   Out of the corner of his eye Josie really did seem to see a door in one of them - and why had they not noticed the sign?   It was a flickering neon, which read TY FAIR, though it may once have been longer and more informative.   A slim tortishell cat in a ballet tutu and holding an umbrella was standing before the portal,
“Would you like to come in?   Entry is free and there’s a circus as well as the market.   We can sell you everything a cat could want.”
Potkin stopped so suddenly that Josie stood on his tail.   It flicked crossly.   The tortie smelled a customer, “An umbrella for when the sky falls in?”
“Is the sky going to fall in?” asked Josie nervously.
“Best be prepared.” she smiled.
The pair peeped round the doorway.   The space beyond was packed with trestle tables and barrows covered in old and weary bric-a-brac and in the distance a shabby, candy striped marquee with flags of Greater Europe, faded to fawn and fluttering from its poles.   A bundle of rags by the nearest table looked up at them.   It contained an ageing and apparently moth eaten ginger tom.
“Boots to protect you from the eclipse?”
“What eclipse?” Potkin enquired.
“There’s bound to be one sometime and the terrible gravitational forces will pluck the unwary from the planet’s surface.   These boots will keep you firmly anchored to the ground.”
Potkin was inspecting one of the tiny little lead diver’s boots that were arranged by size in groups of four.   He failed in his attempt to lift it.
“Are they bolted to the table?”
“They wouldn’t work if they weren’t heavy.”
“I’m not sure how safe I’d feel in something that kept me routed to one spot.” observed Josie.
“Especially if we had a long wait for the eclipse.” added Potkin.   “It’s getting late and will be tea-time soon. Perhaps we should go.”
The black and tan cat had not given up.
“You can eat a… Be careful, Snowdrop’s coming through!”   Josie leaped onto the trestle table, but Potkin turning nonchalantly to see what she was on about, was all but knocked off his feet by a blur of fur and chrome.   A white and black cat was pedalling furiously and jerkily as she balanced on a shiny unicycle.   Snowdrop was concentrating so hard on the three mice she was juggling that she seemed unaware of her surroundings.   The mice squeaked as they flew, or sang in a squeaky sort of way, the unicycle squeaked too and snowdrop chortled jubilantly, " ...a mouse!   Where?   There on the stair!   Where on the stair?   Right there!   A little mouse with clogs on, well I declare!   Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair."   Cat and mice sped by, weaving between the stalls and disappeared into the big top.   There was a dull thud and sharp crash.
“As I was saying, you can eat at Ratter’s Barbecue stall.”   Tortie indicated a rickety costermonger’s barrow, grey and riddled with rot. It was piled high with wire cages and an iron pot hung from a hook.   Yet another dubious character, wild eyed and sporting huge Gypsy earrings, obviously Ratter, moved towards them bearing a staff from which charred objects hung by string-like tails.   Josie was bolting in the direction of the marquee.   “I’ll have one of our sandwiches later.”
“Let’s find out what happened to your friend Snowdrop.”   Potkin grasped the tortishell by a front paw and dragged her after Josie.   Reunited outside the circus tent the trio gingerly lifted a flap in one of the canvas panels. They slipped in as the last of the debris was being cleared away.   At the far end of the interior was a stage, a baroque affair decorated in chipped and tired guilt, crimson and ultramarine.   A sign declaring “Sox’s Varieties” was supported on fluted, balsa wood Corinthian pillars. In the auditorium there had been round tables and gold painted chairs, but most of these, along with any potential audience, had been removed after the crash.

A master of ceremonies appeared on the boards, the very Sox himself.   He was a dapper black cat with white bib and mittens and an otter grey bowler hat.   He stared out at the adventurers and began to annunciate:
“Monsignors et Mesdames, et chattes touts, today and for one day only, we, L’entrepreneur Sox, bring you, straight from an extended tour in those Younited States of Aam-erica, the most famous of twins, the incomparable Henry Special and his beautiful assistant, Wizz!”
Jerkily the curtain rose to reveal a pair of short, rotund blotched tabbies.   Wizz had pulled her yashmac down under her chin to better vent her spleen on her crestfallen brother who quietly drooped under a maroon fez.
“For once just do what I told you, don’t improvise, don’t think, don’t invent, don’t try to be clever and we might just get by.”
She looked round, saw Josie and Potkin looking up and flinging her arms out struck a dramatic pose.
“Tarraa!”
Henry Special froze for a moment and then went into his act.   He began with a number of tricks where he picked cards from a pack, put them back and then failed to find them.   Wizz struck another pose.   Next he poured a glass of milk into a cardboard tube and made it disappear.   That is, the tube disappeared except for some soggy bits, the milk collapsed into a pool on the trestle table that held their props.   Throughout the rest of the performance it dribbled onto the stage.   Snowdrop had shakily emerged from under an upturned remnant of furniture, looking little the worse for her accident.   She applauded.   Henry pulled a flag from his mouth and handed it to Wizz.   The beautiful assistant continued to draw out the flags of all nations, barely moth-eaten and tied together at the corners.   This was a very long trick as there are many nations.   Snowdrop went wild, jumping up and down and wolf whistling.   Josie was quite impressed too.
“Where do you think he had all those hidden?” he asked Potkin.
“Under his fez, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“And now,” announced Henry Special, “I shall saw my beautiful assistant in half!”
“I don’t think so.” cut in Wizz with a frown.   There was a prolonged hiatus whilst Henry fiddled indecisively with the chinstrap of his hat.   Then as one cat they gave a deep and exaggerated bow to their dumbstruck audience and the curtain dropped with a thud. A cloud of dust rose from the boards and the limelights flickered.   Snowdrop rushed to the back of stage to try and meet her heroes.
Potkin and Josie looked at each other in puzzled silence.   Rather shiftily they left the tent accompanied by their guide.

Back out in the fairground Tortie still hankered after a visit to Ratter’s fast food stall.
“Sorry. We really do have to go.” Potkin apologised, “But have a rat for us.”   He put an arm round Josie, they both waved and strode towards the door in the wall.   The tortishell cat waved back with a lace handkerchief that was only lightly soiled.   Outside all was in shadow and the doorway had disappeared.   Wisps of smoke rose from the hearths of the thatch and turf hovels that hugged the old wall.
After a short, yet brisk walk, checking regularly that they were not being pursued by an entrepreneurial cat in a tutu, the pair emerged from the twitchel into the courtyard of an inn. A flaking sign hung ominously by one hinge from a gallows and bore the fading image of a lonely lighthouse, on the end of a promontory protruding into an empty sea, beneath a sullen sky.   Tarnished gold script proclaimed, "The World's End."
The bleak tavern stood isolated and run down in the twilight, at the very edge of civilisation.

Victory in Wellingtons

A ripple of phuts was followed by a ground shaking kerump.   Josie was thinking that he should perhaps be following his nose in some other direction when the grass beneath his feet shook again. Leaves quivered on the hedge ahead and white smoke billowed above it.   Two large black and white birds fluttered into the air above an elegant wooden squeezer stile at a gap in the hawthorne barrier and then resettled on its posts.   Potkin thrust his head through the gap to see an open field falling away from his vantage point.   The smoke was just settling out in the hollow like an autumn mist, spreading layers of white and greys, when another crash made his ears ring.   A jet of orange fire and curls of smoke streamed from the confusion and some dry grass flared up.
There came another volley of pops and several cracks.   Beyond the smoke, on raised ground he could make out a small crowd of spectators. The children, who made up the majority, were crying bitterly.   With each new boom they jumped, quivering, and the weeping increased.   Mothers tutted and consoled.   Fathers in baseball caps and summer shorts sucked on their 99's, licking the ice cream before chomping on the flake.
“You are witnessing,” said one of the magpies, “or would be, if you could see anything but the fug of war, one of the great moments in British history; and it is happening right here in our Whitebottom Meadow,   An English general, haughty and beaky, inventor of the vulcanised rubber galosh, and the chip butty, over all commander of the British red coats and a small contingent of Prussians or Belgians or something like that, is about to defeat the diminutive emperor of France, along with his feared Vieille Guarde and the French Foreign Legion.   It will be forever known as the Battle of White Bottom. “
“I think we’ll give history a wide berth.” suggested Potkin.
The magpies looked a little crestfallen, but Josie was in full agreement. Passing quickly through the stile and keeping close beneath the hedge they skulked round the edge of the field, as far from the action as they could contrive.   Every time the smoke started to settle out into undulating sheets another explosion would send new clouds rolling outwards. Volleys of musket fire added to the noise and fog.   Cries and shouts and curses echoed across the field.   Someone knew some very rude expressions.   A small group of horsemen  emerged into the light, cuirassiers akin to the one they had met earlier and lancers with mortar board helmets like woefully inadequate bird tables balanced precariously on their heads.   They were followed by scarlet clad cavalry, with tall, black bear skins, riding heavy, matching greys; who charged in pursuit, line abreast, knee to knee.   Pursued and pursuer did a turn around the field and then wheeled back into the smog.   A roar went up, the musketry rattled once more and the wailing of  infants transended any morally acceptable norm.   Somewhere a shrill fife was piping out O'er the Hills and Far Away.
By the time our heroes reached the far side of the meadow they were shivering from terror and an excess of adrenalin.   Passing through a kissing gate, fiddly for a cat even at the best of times, they found themselves in a long straight grassy avenue lined with trees.   To left and right it stretched away as far as the two cats could see.   The noise of battle faded and was gone.   Heart rates settled to something close to normal.   Josie was the first to decide they had reached another nice spot.   It was, he felt, the ideal place for their second sandwich stop.

Eventually replete with shrimp paste sandwiches it was time for an afternoon nap.   Josie soon began to drift into sleep where he was pursued by an angry jay.   Joined by the two magpies, they dive-bombed his head while he careered down a grassy bank to lose his footing on the moss-covered wood of a narrow bridge.   He was looking helplessly up into the malevolent eyes of the birds as the mermaid caught him.
Meanwhile Potkin was barely disturbed by the twitching, mewing tabby bundle beside him.   He lay with his feet tidily tucked under his body and gazed meditatively along the length of the avenue. Quietly he composed a seascape with gulls, tan sailed fishing craft and a walrus.   The holiday sun warmed through his fur.   He had just made the walrus rise into the air and turn a long, slow, tail flapping summersault when Josie awoke.
“I’m exhausted, Potkin.   Do you want to hear about my dream?”
The walrus fell and Potkin’s creation dissolved.
“Time to go on.” He snapped.

YoYo Pond

They emerged from the thickest of  the threatening wild-wood where tortured dark oaks and chestnuts hemmed in on the narrowing track and cobwebs laced across their path, brushing their faces.   Part of the stream's steep bank had collapsed to provide a handy drinking place for the wild creatures of the forest.   They could make out the delicate prints of deer and fox in the soft mud, but also something larger.   It was a round, deep paw print with the clear indication of claws.
"The spoor of the Surrey Beast." explained Potkin.   "At dusk it can be heard stalking through these woods and the whisper of its breathing silences the birds."
"But only at dusk." asserted Josie, seeking reassurance.
"Mostly." replied Potkin casually.
 Josie spent much of the time looking over his shoulder as they moved onwards, and as a consequence twice walked into an inconveniently placed tree.   He was also listening intently for heavy breathing, but eventually realised that the eery muffled thumping was his own heart beat.    It was a relief when they came upon an aging plank bridge and a clearer path that led uphill away from the river and its menacing undergrowth.
“I think we’ll go this way.” said Potkin.
“So long as we’re still following our noses,” Josie felt it was the right decision, but wanted to be sure they were still following the only advice they had had so far.
As the ground levelled out they came upon a pond hidden amongst the blackberry thickets and long grass. It was round, still and very green with its carpet of duck weed.
“Like a billiard table,” said Josie, who had never seen one, “It looks as if you could walk on it.”
“Want to try?” Potkin countered.
“YoYo Pond,” a voice croaked.
Josie and Potkin looked round and the frog continued, “It’s called YoYo Pond or The Vanishing Pond, because it disappears as soon as you hop away and isn’t there when you hop back.”
“We met a girl like that,” said Josie, “Is it interdimensional?”
“We think she was a fairy,” added Potkin.
“Beats me,” said the frog, “but the people in the pond only age while its here. Some of them are hundreds of years old.”
“People in the pond, what people in the pond?”
“Just people.” Even for a frog he did not philosophise greatly. “If you look down into the water you will see them.”
“I want to see.” squealed Josie, tugging Potkin by the fur, “Come on lets have a look.”
Potkin held back, “I don’t do water, I’ll just stay here.”
Josie stepped up to the edge of the water, parted the cover of green weed with the tip of a paw and peered into the darkness. At first he could see only reflections on the surface, but slowly he began to discern movement below. The world down there was shadowy and indistinct. A mottle of light or dark specks drifted back and forth, plant like shapes wafted in slight, thermally driven currents, something animal darted and lurked. Then Josie noticed the perfectly circular, tiny patch of pale blue far down in the depths. He moved so close that his toes and nose were touching the pond. He stared as hard as he could. It was sky, a circle of sky. He could see clouds and the dot of a skylark. He could hear its song echoing faintly. Tiny, chubby fingers curled at the edge of the circle and a face looked in. A girl child, with curls and a strange form of bonnet was staring up at him with shining, emerald eyes. Her features rippled with excitement.
“Mummy! There’s a pussy cat down the well.”
Josie was tipping forwards. In drawn out slow motion he was plunging. His head swelled and began to spin. His tail twanged taught and he was jerked backwards. Twisting his neck round in amazement Josie could see Potkin tugging with all his might on the tufty, tabby end of his tail.
“OK, OK, I’m back, you’ve saved me.”
“We thought you were going in. What did you see in there?”
“I don’t know, nothing much. I think I came over a bit peculiar.”
“You’ve still got a strange look in your eye. Come away from the edge,” said Potkin in a concerned tone, “Perhaps we should continue on our journey.”
“What’s all the excitement?” asked the frog indifferently as he leaped towards the water.
He landed on his back in a tuft of grass as Potkin and Josie opened their eyes.
“It’s true then. It really does disappear when you’re not looking.”
“You looked away, didn’t you?” the frog croaked angrily, “Now I’ll have to sit here until the pond returns. I really fancied a gentle swim and a juicy larva snack.”
Our grinning and rather self-satisfied adventurers felt it was time to 'hop' off.   They were whistling a sea shanty in duet as they swaggered on their way.

Their path led up to a low ridge and then descended into an area of coppiced trees, shrubbery and hedges. A small blue-grey bird was flying just ahead of them chat-chattering in annoyance. A crack of breaking twig echoed loudly from a copse to their right and through the hedge crashed something very unexpected.
A huge black horse wheeled ahead of them, it’s long and equally black, crinkled mane streaming in every direction. Surmounting the horse and struggling to control it, was a towering, darkly uniformed man. A breastplate gleamed. A bright steely helmet topped with a massive, scarlet plume obscured the face.
"Le Blucher est-il arrivé encore?  Meard alors!   Êtes-vous avec les Allemands?"
“Wha…” said Potkin who had lost the use of all his limbs and the power of speech.
“Parlez vous Anglataire? Je ne compredre pas,” tried Josie in what he hoped was his best French.
The cuirassier threw up his shoulders in a Gallic shrug, uttered a, “Poof!” and regaining mastery of a steed that was now thrashing limbs and streaming horsehair in so many directions it seemed about to lose coherence and fly apart, wheeled it about and thundered back into the undergrowth. There was an inrush of air, and a flurry of leaves and twigs wafting to the ground behind him.
“Wha’ the?” managed Potkin.

Strange Encounter

Girding their loins, well, Josie girded what he hoped might be his loins, he and Potkin passed through the gateway and headed off into the wilderness.   They dropped down steeply into a small, wooded vale, eventually coming to a rustic spruce bridge across a splashing waterfall and clear, midge-speckled pool.
Potkin suddenly shot down a rough path that skirted the pool and tracked the sun-dappled stream that flowed from it.   Josie followed whilst formulating some very important questions to ask just as soon as he caught up.   Where were they going and was it really a good idea?
Tiny helicopters danced above the waters of the pool.   Josie was familiar with the Chinooks that flew over his cottage, bound for RAF Odiham, but these miniature craft shone with iridescent blues, sporting dark roundels on their transparent wings.   Meanwhile Potkin had come nose to nose with a very large dragonfly.   Josie was still absorbed with the flying jewels.
“Do you think they’re fairies?” he enquired.
“I don’t think so,” replied Potkin, “And this one looks bloody annoyed.”
Josie looked beyond Potkin and saw the large, winged creature with a billiard ball head and an angry, compound-eyed stare.   He sat down.   Then, rather unsteadily, he stood up again.
“Could we skirt round it and try not to look threatening?”
“I’m guessing that to him we don’t look at all threatening.”
They backed up gingerly and made a wide detour through the underbrush before rejoining their path. The dusty track was less used now and the trees grew closer together.   Blackberry bush and nettle tangles, tumbled onto the path.   Little sunlight penetrated the leaf cover, Josie and Potkin drew closer together as the shadows darkened and the boscage thickened.   There were some very strange noises coming from the undergrowth.
After a nerve wracking few minutes they rounded a gnarled and twisted old oak and found the river to be snaking in a lazy curve about a shingle beach.   Golden light dappled through the thinning foliage, leaves rustled and the water splashed in a friendly sort of way. The two cats became much more confident.
“This looks a nice spot,” said Josie, “Fancy a sandwich?”

- ~ -

Splot.   A dollop of water arrived on the tablecloth.   Potkin was peering upwards for signs of rain when the splot happened again.   Josie looked round and there in the river was a something.   Potkin could see it too, well almost.   It looked roughly humanoid, probably female and was possibly naked, but he could not properly focus on her.   It was as if she was not really where he was looking or he was not looking where she really was; and some of her bits were transforming.   She had been idly flicking water at them with a large fishy tail, but now she seemed to have developed legs, much too long and ending in slender feet, her peroxide sheep-shag of hair was morphing, to fall, blue-black and straight beyond her shoulders, and her skin was shimmering with milky, rainbow colours.
“What are you?” asked Potkin.
“Where are you?” asked Josie.
“I’m a water nymph,” she explained, “and I’m - er - between dimensions.”
Josie was getting his worried look. One more phrase he didn’t understand and he would have a panic attack.
“What’s dimensions?” from Potkin.
“Hmm…. you know what happens when cats walks through walls?”
“I do know it’s quite difficult,” said Potkin, “you have to concentrate very hard as you approach the wall and then at the last minute think of nothing; and whoosh, you’re on the other side.”
“Last time I tried that,” Josie joined in, “I bumped my nose”
“As you pass through the wall you are momentarily interdimensional; well, that’s where I am.   My friends and I are looking in on your world, sort of visiting.”
“Why?" asked Josie, "And what do you get up to while you’re here?”
“We observe, meditate, read poetry, indulge in frequent, uninhibited sex, grant wishes and splash passers by.”
“Would you like to expand on the, er, sex bit?” asked Potkin.
”And the wish granting,” chipped in Josie, optimistically, “Can you do anything about these? I’ve been saving them since I was very young.”   He took two small and very shrivelled objects from a threadbare velvet pouch and placed them in her outstretched, delicately elongated hand.
“I do tricks, not work miracles,” she said, casually tossing them over her shoulder into the water.   A snail, floating by on its upturned shell, slurped up one of the diminutive nuggets with a gulp and continued down stream.
Josie looked a little disappointed and sighed.
Potkin quickly changed the subject, “We’re on an adventure but at the moment it's all a bit random.   We don’t have a purpose.”
"Serendipity governs all." she replied with authority, "Embrace the chaos.   Your journey already is the purpose, follow your noses and your quest will be revealed.”
Apparently content with her reply, she rotated slowly in a non-dimensional sort of way and slid out of this reality.   A pair of dark, purple-blue beautiful demoiselles dog-fought above the spot where she had disappeared.   Just for a moment the recently vacated stream seemed to hold to her shape and then seeped back into place.
“Can we have our sandwiches now?” asked Josie.
“And the pop too,” added Potkin, “That was all a bit exhausting.”
They ate quickly, packed away the tablecloth and leftovers and resumed their journey down stream.
“I suppose she was quite nice really,” Josie mused.
“But what was she on about?   Was she being helpful?” said Potkin.
Josie was still being thoughtful, “She never claimed to be helpful.”

A Very English Odyssey

...Best we move quickly on to a proper story.   This is a tale of Potkin, who you have met before, and Posie (or Josie) who was as old as Catmethuselah when I knew him, but is much younger in this adventure.   It's a sort of coming of age road story kind of thing. 

Josephine was a sandy, longhaired tabby; not long haired like an over designed pedigree, but practically, tastefully and elegantly longhaired.   There had been a misunderstanding in his early youth and in fact he preferred to be called Jo when he was out with his pals.   Most people called him Josie, which was alright he supposed.   He lived in an Edwardian cottage in a very civilised part of England; and life was good.
Today though, he was bored.   He had eaten all his food, cleaned thoroughly between his toes, sculpted his litter into fanciful landscapes and explored behind the sofa.   He decided to wake Potkin.
Potkin, a solid, black and white London longhair had come to their new home with Richard on the same day that he and Joy had moved in.   He and Potkin were still a bit wary of each other, but when it came to mischief Potkin was definitely the expert.
“I’m bored,” said Josie.   Potkin pricked an ear and opened one amber eye.
“It just so happens I’ve been planning an adventure.
“Pack for a long journey,” advised Potkin.
Josie carefully buttered sixteen slices of bread and then layered them generously with shrimp paste.   He doubled them over, stacked them neatly corner to corner and placed them in an airtight box.   Next he looked out several tins of tuna, but they seemed inconveniently heavy and were discarded.   This left space in his box so he made more sandwiches filled with the smoked mackerel remnants left over from Richard's breakfast.   He shared out some biscuit snacks and after a little thought spread the last of the paste on them.   From the fridge he took two small bottles of pop, he folded a tablecloth and looked out their boonie sun hats and wellingtons.   The load was divided equally between two small but capacious rucksacks.
“What now?” he asked.
Through the cat flap, left down the close, across the lane and down a gentle slope to the corner, here at the busy main road they were at the limit of their territory.   They waited patiently for a gap in the traffic, crossed carefully and headed down Nutshell Lane.   It was a pretty lane, winding lazily between flint and brick cottages and lined with wild flowers and trees.    The sun was shining, a light breeze rustled the leaves, the air was fresh with country smells and they were both feeling pretty good about their adventure.   Ahead of them the lane dipped down, then climbed, twisted to left, then right.   Insects buzzed around their heads and bird twitter filled the air.   Josie chatted excitedly at Potkin until a gaudy tan bird with a crested head and black and white striped wings barred their way.   It was ramming acorns into the gaps between the cobblestones.
“Are you watching my nuts?” demanded the bird.
“We rarely concern ourselves with items so small..." (There was a short pause.) "...and vegetarian,” replied Potkin as he stalked past.   Josie scampered to catch up.   The bird watched them pass with obvious annoyance; then disinterred his stash and moved it to somewhere less public.
Further down the lane they came to a chocolate box, flint built cottage, its frontage festooned with pink dog roses.   'Rose Cottage' proclaimed a carved sign hanging in the porch where a kindly and rotund old lady in a wrap round pinny was standing before the door.
“Would you two little kitties like some milk?” she asked, popping briefly indoors and emerging with a bowl and jug.   Josie was about to decline on account of milk making him excessively regular, but Potkin plunged head first into the bowl the instant it was put down.   Fearful of being left out, or appearing rude, Josie joined in.   As they drank they were petted and cooed over.
“Very nice,” Potkin thanked her as a last drip of milk ran to the end of a whisker and fell off.   “We’ll be sure to call again on our way back.”
They departed, tails high, the lane ascending yet again.   On rounding a bend they came to a weathered and rickety wooden gate.   The duo stopped to take in the view.   Ahead, unkempt fields and blue-green woods fell away from them, stretching across a wide, sun drenched valley to a hilly horizon way in the misty distance.
“Where have the houses gone?” asked Josie
“There aren’t any.”
“I’ve never been anywhere were there weren’t houses.   What is it for?”
“It’s country,” explained Potkin.

Dark Fluff in the Vacuum

"Richard!   There's something wrong with the vacuum, it won't suck up."   Joy's cry from the dining room was agitated and strident.
Boz was curled on the living room sofa with a ginger and cream, banded tail draped across his nose.   He raised one eyebrow and half opened one eye.   "Good, perhaps, now, we can get some peace around here."
Richard was surprised, he had not considered that fawning subservience was required of a hoover.   However, armed with a Phillips screwdriver, a wire coat hanger and eternal hope he readied himself for an attempt at a repair.   The yellow Hoover télios class 1500 lay in the middle of the dining room floor whining pathetically.   Richard unplugged it from the wall socket, spread out a used copy of the Fernton Bugle to receive the contents of the distressed appliance and then removed an access cover from the machine.   The stout brown paper bag within was bulging and stretched close to the point of losing structural integrity.   He detached the bag and emptied it over the newspaper.   There was a puther of normal dust which spread out to hang in cloudy layers across the room and then a dark mass flopped out over a full colour photograph of the town crier, in full regalia, and a short article about inappropriate dealings in respect of a lucrative but unpopular proposal for a town centre shopping mall.   The heap settled gently, its lumps and folds resembling black mashed potato and wire-wool, tar black rivulets and pools seeping into crannies, its boundaries blurred as if it was not quite in this world, its hyper-black core sucking in colour from its surroundings.   The dust cloud, slowly at first, gravitated back into the primal entity.
"What on earth is that?"   Joy was standing in the doorway holding a wrought iron toasting fork out defensively in front of her body.   Boz peeped from behind her skirts.
Richard could not take his eyes off the hypnotic murk.   The intense blackness seemed to draw in everything around it, filled his field of vision, tugged at his mind, his soul.
As Joy watched in horror, writhing black fingers of fluff reached out towards her husband.
"Get away from him, you bitch!"   She thrust her toasting fork into the mass.   The iron chilled in an instant and was tugged from her grasp.   She jerked back screaming as the weapon was drawn into the slowly pulsing form.

Richard watched as the blackness clouded over, blackly.   He was tumbling towards the blacker than black core.   Faint pin pricks of light began to appear and multiply, pastel clouds hung in the void, vast clouds of fluff; fluff within the universe and a universe within the fluff.   The clouds towered above him, the points of fuzzy light grew into swirling galaxies.   An immense tilted catherine wheel spiral rushed towards him, around him.   Ahead was a single, boiling honey-gold star.   Orbiting gas giants spun past, billowing elemental clouds and storms thousands of miles deep, magnetic fields crackling from pole to pole - and now he was falling towards a sphere of vapour cloaked rock.   He was through the cloud in a heart beat and into drizzle, giant rime-heavy wings slowing his descent.   Below, the bleak junction between pallid grey land and a heaving black sea; a web of gunmetal highways and charcoal grey rooftops; a canyon-like street, a bustling sidewalk.

He is inside the saloon bar of a dockside ale house.   The grey-brown linoleum is cracked and sticky, the anaglypta wallpaper shades of tobacco, upholstery faded and threadbare.   Faded and threadbare locals at black iron, marble topped tables, too heavy to throw, stare into their flat pints, thin light from shabby wall lamps struggles to penetrate the pall of cigarette smoke; fall-down-drunk sailors grope their tattooed escorts, slop beer, leer and cheer at the pole dancer.   Her death-white body writhes around the chrome shaft - bored, unsexy, mechanically caricaturing the procreative act on a low stage.
Richard, out of body Richard, is at the step-high dais, drinking in the body odours, her blue-white flesh containing his view, every purple thumb and tooth imprint, each livid indented bra and knicker-elastic scar sharply detailed.   The blanched belly envelopes him.   He is dissolving into the bland, self absorbed, all absorbing eternal feminine...

There is a clatter at the cat flap as Phoebles bounds in from the yard.   Tail high he prances and somersaults into the dining room, certain as ever of the overwhelming joy his presence will provoke.   And then he stops, puzzled.   No one has looked up, no one has moved.   The little group before him stares, motionless at a lumpy black mass of...
"So that's where you've been all this time."   Peering into the fluff mound he has seen something treasured.   He leaps into the middle of the outspread newspaper, dust and fluff flying in all directions.   There is a collective gasp.   Boz sneezes.
Phoebles emerges clutching the limp, grey, filthy form of his favourite one eared catnip mouse, more furless, featureless and tailless than ever.   The company, fast recovering its equilibrium, regards him and sighs.
"...What?"

At a quantum level Dark Fluff is constantly and spontaneously flicking in and out of existence.    These transients are known scientifically as Quirks.  To the observer of one small area of space such events are barely detectable, but at any one moment in time, across the entire vastness of our universe the net mass of all the fleeting and tiny flufflets is significant.   Very occasionally a number of coincident creation events will occur in close proximity and sufficient mass will accrue for gravity to come into play.   As the conglomerate grows fluff enters our Newtonian World and that is when the true mystery of Dark Fluff becomes apparent.