He always awoke five minutes before the alarm was to sound. He then turned it off and remained in bed for those five wonderful minutes. Even more wonderful, if it was chilly and he could stay under the covers, warm and cozy. But right at 5:35 AM he was up, no matter what.

This particular morning he was staying at a bed and breakfast in an out-of-the-way town, well not so completely out-of-the-way. He relished the road less traveled, but needed community. So here he landed, an acknowledged denizen of the road. He walked down the hall to the shared shower – there was no line. He shaved and showered. He never showered and shaved. After finishing his toilet, he made his way back to his room, knowing if he ventured downstairs there would be know one about. So he read some poetry. Usually in these little byways in the time stream he read Billy Collins, but his morning it was e.e. cummings. Lack of capital letters seemed to suit this particular b & b. After about an hour he heard movement below, and so ventured down.

As he made his first step into the main floor realm, he knew that something was afoot. Something with a tail, a rather long tail. It vanished just as he recognized it’s disinterest. Where was that woman? “Oh, Miss …” he said. He thought he had just glimpsed her, just after the tail or the cat? He trailed. What was her name. Something Victorian, he thought. Wasn’t that her just off on a tangent. He croaked, “Oatmeal!”

There was an echo, Oattttt . . ., but where was the meal? He followed his nose. Which was not that difficult to do. It seemed to lead forward. Quite by accident he found the kitchen, or perhaps the other way round. The Victorian woman was nowhere to be found. Nor the cat. He debated rummaging through the cupboards, when a woman’s voice commanded, “Sir!” He replied, “Oatmeal.” The owner and grand dame of the establishment said sharply “Breakfast is at 7:30 sharp,” He countered with not insubstantial dismay, “What about my oatmeal?” She closed the matter by saying, “A hostel this is Not!” Tying up the not with an ultimate finality.

He was about to strike out in search of someone who might have a stash of oatmeal, when he was almost bowled over by a mid-teen girl who obviously wanted to be elsewhere. The girl actually exclaimed, “It’s much too long!” She was much out of breath and seemed to peer in all directions at once. “Victoria, please calm yourself at once.” The anti-oatmeal woman commanded. “But it’s true,” Victoria said, “Buffy’s tail is much, much too long!” The woman with a Victorian name that wasn’t Victoria, said, “Nonsense, young lady, a cat’s tail doesn’t grow.”

“Not only was it too long, but the tail and the cat seemed to be traveling in opposite directions,” Victoria said, snapping the conversation to an end. She wondered off, bedazzled, wide-eyed, obviously wanting to be somewhere the cat was not. He was awed by the girl’s reaction. To him all of the best cats had tails that were too long. He would have to find this cat, Buffy, and her tail. But before he got far, he heard a screech, and the words, “He’s moving so very, very slowly!”

“Oh, come you must see!” A woman’s voice sounded from upstairs. “It’s Mr. Carmichael, he was … now, where’s he gotten off to, he was just in the library.” The gentleman thought, how odd. He was of the opinion that moving slowly was the optimum in human achievement. He often practiced it himself, and sometimes fantasized that if he moved just slowly enough he … might … “Where’s he gotten to? How could one who moves so slowly manage to travel so far!” The upstairs woman was now downstairs, and had stopped before our oatmeal loving adventurer, shook her finger at him and said, “I ask you, how?” It was a good question and he decided to give it some serious thought. To serious evidently, for the woman whirled and stalked off without getting his answer. And what was his answer? “Perhaps,” he said to no one in particular, “if you moved just slowly enough you simply disappeared and reappeared somewhere else or perhaps nowhere at all.”

He decided that if he found Buffy and/or her tail, Mr. Carmichael was sure to reappear soon thereafter. So he set out on a search, but before he could get far, there came a pounding on the front door. It shook the whole house. What next, he thought? He did not have long to contemplate when the door was wrenched open and a tall red haired woman shot in and banged the door shut behind her and leaned back heavily against it. She panted and all the color had drained from her face. She said, “Nothing is right out there. The angles are all wrong somehow. And the color of the sky is too blue. Nothing is straight and as it should be.” Finally she ran down, and looked around herself with some embarrassment but still a good deal of fear. Eventually she slogged away toward the stairs, moving very slowly. Perhaps, he thought, she would discover Mr. Carmichael’s secret and they might find each other and develop a very slow moving relationship.

Everything a little crooked. That sounded just about right to him. He had always been a little off center, not quite a right angle. This might be just the town for him. He started to the front door, when a woman behind him said, “So you’ve finally chosen, have you.” Her name was not Victorian. It was a name only to be whispered, and then only on certain ceremonial days. He thought he caught her in a smile as he turned to leave, but probably not. He opened the door and stepped out into a bright brisk October morning. The colors of autumn had reinvented themselves.

He said to no one in particular, “Just another ordinary day!” He smiled a smile that was just a little too wide and tilted more than a little to the left.