Hi, I’m Arwen. We found the door behind a dresser and a large wall hanging. There was no light, and the stairway was narrow, to a building sized storage area were the library kept its back log of books. The thinking is it may have originally been a bomb shelter. It’s a strange energy down here. The walls are painted bright blue cement with purple trim. The lighting is nonexistent, so you have to light a lantern at the foot of the steep stair well. It’s three large rooms, one with metal shelving and roll ladders, packed with labeled plastic totes, another in the back looks like the room where they threw all unwanted or broken things like furniture, lamps, kitchen stuff, air conditioners, file cabinets, probably a lot of the stuff from pre internet and an empty storage room with empty metal shelving. It’ll definitely be fun going through this stuff but the second big surprise that has most of us excited, a cat in a hat, a tall top hat along with other trunks of costume clothing.

  The reason we began looking for a way down here is with me now as well as Trek. Some who work on the damaged books above have heard the sounds of a cat. Those first down looked but at first couldn’t find anything but just as they were about to go back up, they heard it again, a faint barely meow but definitely a last gasp for help. Zenith found it in the corner of the other room deep inside a very tall hat, barely alive and indistinguishable from the all black hat, a skinny mangy black cat with large pleading eyes peering up from its soon to be gloomy grave.

  The stories of cats surviving incredible odds is legion and now Seuss joins them. We wanted to call him Dr. Seuss but after a few laughs decided on just Seuss. In a week, he’s made a miraculous recovery. It’s almost as if they have the genes to go through long periods of no food or water and when rescued also have the ability to shake it off and recover in record time. So now we have the mythic black cat in the library.

  And I’m so thrilled that I’ve decided to go with it. I will talk about my gentle partner Trek, our journey here, and what we have been working on, but I can’t let this go unanswered. It’s certainly ripe for consideration, yeah! And so, the cat returneth to this beautiful old library from whence it came. After a group hug, awes and oohs, milk was created using powdered milk and then only slightly warmed up and after carefully searching the storage area of course found ten cans of cat food. Using a book we found on cats, we developed a rescue diet plan of slowly increasing his food and drink after only seeing a noticeable improvement. On the third day it could lift its head, on the fifth day, Seuss crawled out of his fluffy floor bed and began wobbling around, not quite sure about the mass of people cramming at the door looking in.

  This is the seventh day, and he has reestablished his acquaintance with the lower floor, spending most of his time in the S and T stacks, we believe a favorite hunting ground. Of course, cats and mice don’t know there’s an apocalypse going on so the mythic dance of cats protecting the written word since the 3rd century B.C., continues. No mice yet but he’s still weak and naps a lot. Both Trek and I view this place as a monastery as much as an old beautiful city library. At night, sometimes we light a candle and sit up against the stacks and listen. It’s a bit trippy especially when the wind is blowing but without wind, you get to hear the tiny sounds that could be mice or bugs and a whole lot of weird. Seuss joins us sometimes, purring like an engine being scratched and softly brushed until he falls asleep.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  In one book we found that the written history of cats in libraries is extensive. The one we both liked is about a 9th-century Irish monk and his cat Pangur Ban. Pangur Ban. One night while translating religious texts he watches him stalk a mouse and so caught up in his abilities he scribbles a poem on the manuscript he has been working from.

  Iand Pangur Ban, my cat,

  ‘Tis a like task we are at:

  Hunting mice is his delight,

  Hunting words I sit all night.

  And so, we had a ceremony last night to welcome Seuss into the fellowship of the Guardians of the Wordsmiths Keep, lavishing our best prose, offering a full can of food, his first and afterword's playing CATS on the cd player hooked to a battery that Jagger somehow jerry rigged or, ahem, jagger rigged. I believe this beautiful interlude was exactly what we all needed! Someone is drawing his likeness to be hung in the main hallway, another constructing his own home with walkways between three floors with a built-in water feed.

  So grateful! In other news, its stopped raining and a glimpse of sun, the beans we planted are doing well, we’ve all decided to start our own book club, reading the same book and passing it on till we can sit down and talk about it. Cool! Most want sci-fi so the first will be LOTR even though a lot have either read it or watched it with one question. How is it similar to what’s going on, and can we construct a story that reflects it.

  Cats special power, seeing in the dark. A dog's power of a super sensitive olfactory system. How would our civilization look today if we had just those powers? Or enhanced any or all of our senses. What if this rumored hybrid human had all that and some extra senses thrown in. On top of that what if it used twice, all of its gray matter. Next to them, we would look like Neanderthals', rubbing to sticks together. The reason why we’ve screwed up so much. In some way I hope it’s true. My mother taught me that when we really truly needed something with every fiber of our being, that it would come. You just have to recognize it in whatever form it takes. I for one believe this with all my heart and power! I walked half way up a mountain to cry like a baby for Earth on a rock in the middle of a stream and a giant gift fell, kerplunk, right in front of me. He’s behind me now massaging my back. The thing is that during exceptional times, exceptional things happen and when gifts fall, unlike other times, are easy to see, no abstract, obtuse thinking involved. This is our legend. We are the characters out of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written. We don’t need rehearsed lines and we don’t need to create an adversary. All the elements are cued up for this historic drama to unfold. Nothing will be a surprise from now on. Someday someone will write this book and, yes, in the misty fog of alternative futures, we will stand with our green fist in the air against monsters, defying odds that are unprecedented! The small defiant young humans held up in the Wordsmiths Keep, planning our next move. All hail, Seuss!