A fat cat thin or a thin cat fat? When Alleycat was young he was thin, but suddenly one day he became enormously fat, like a bear getting ready to hibernate, or like a cat leviathan.
But there was method and purpose behind his bulking-up. He was building his physical power in the knowledge that soon he’d be poisoned (and he was) but he got himself through his ordeal and burned off the poison by burning away his fat. He came near the Door of Death, and he saw through it, and who knows what arcane knowledge he glimpsed out of the edge of his cat’s eyes in those days when the prison was attacking him. But now the poison’s gone and he’s as thin and fit as he was when he was young, and as for me I’m a little bit fatter than I’d like to be, so Alleycat and I have started running together. We jog together along the disused railway line near my house, and sometimes we stop and listen for the ghostly whistling of the old-time trains. By the way, it’s Alleycat in both of the photos, fat and young at the top, old and thin at the side.
