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| Krystal the Philosophical Karrot by Foutoux All Rights Reserved Copyright L.Ivison 2013 |
A year had past and the Kuppies were now all, reasonably behaved Cogs - the Prince had got used to sliding around the house in large doggy puddles. His reputation as a Russian aristocrat had been dented by his purring dogs experiment but largely the Chateau had returned to its normal routine.
However, one winter's evening the Prince was sitting before the Great Fire, and Ignatius and Rodolph were being particularly unbearable, running around the Great Hall, tearing up the curtains (what was left of them). How wonderful, the Prince thought, to have Kuppies and Cogs that lived in a cage - it would save him a fortunate in velvet curtains. It was then that he hit upon his new idea - he remembered that his neighbour, another exile from the Russian Revolution, Count Morowski, had a bird avery and he had seen some rather wonderful parrots there last week.
A few days later, the Prince got to work in his dilapidated glasshouse at the bottom of his Rose Garden where his Crimson Neige variety bloomed all year round and set about crossing Ming's genes, (the Siamese cat) with a parrot.
The following Spring three fine Karrots were born to Ming. They looked exactly like their mother, except that instead of fur they had feathers of every possible colour - red, yellow, orange, green and instead of two paws they had two claws - ideal for hanging onto a perch thought Prince Volonski. Ming found the suckling a little uncomfortable, but after a few weeks they were big enough to put in cages. The three fine Karrots were hung in the conservatory - a glass house filled with exotic plants and looking onto his famous Rose Garden. "Peace at last" thought the Prince. The Karrots, with their cats' eyes, cats' ears and whiskers were very colourful and, being in a cage were no longer a threat to the Prince's velvet curtains. The added bonus was, of course, that he now had "cats" that talked and he began to teach them the rudimentaries, beginning with "whose a pretty boy then?" What the Prince hadn't bargained for was that unlike parrots who are great imitators the Karrots had the minds of cats - utterly contrary and not wanting for a moment to obey or please their master. The responses the Prince got to his "whose a pretty boy then" were rather peremptory, not to say rude "Not you" said Kyle, the biggest Karrot.
The Karrots grew into fine feathered creatures but as their vocabluary grew so did their disenchantment with being caged and they started to complain to the Prince. The worst was Krystal, the smallest and most intelligent of the Karrots. She, like the Prince, had a philosophical turn of mind, and rather than direct insults and complaints she would pose philosophial questions. To the question "whose a lovely girl then?" Krystal would reply "What's the meaning of a word" or some other philosophical conundrum which confounded the Prince who would then spend an entire evening pondering the questions Krystal posed.
And so a winter passed - with the Karrots complaints ringing in his ears and Krystal's intellectual enquiries disturbing his sleep - the Prince decided that he he had to get rid of the Karrots. His first visit would be to his neighbour Prince Moroski.
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| Ignatius as a Kuppie by Foutoux All Rights Reserved Copyright L.Ivison 2013 |
FOUTOUX
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED L.IVISON 2013
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