Thursday, December 2, 2010

336. The best of both worlds


Running her hand down the glistening fur, Nerida reflected on the eternal conflict between freedom and security.

‘I don’t blame you, puddy-tat. I am not keen to venture out into that weather either’.

She pulled her jacket closer around her and took another sip of her coffee. The day was young, the light poor, and the weather lamentable, but a deadline is a deadline. She doodled the mouse across its pad. It occured to Nerida that this was, indeed, a nice little cocoon, for her as much as for the cat.

‘I am free to walk out that door, but I simply don’t have the guts to do it’.

She dragged the still soggy underwear from the front-loading washer and tossed them into the dryer.

‘How free am I then? I wonder if freedom is more a state of mind than a reality.’

She stood, staring out into the rain.

5 comments:

diane b said...

Yes I guess it is a state of mind but that might be hard to believe if you were in prison. It is funny how when it is raining we think of all the things that need doing outside but when its not raining we don't do them anyway.
Fat cat!

Julie said...

No no no n o ... this is my THIN cat. It is the ginger who is my fat cat!!

Yes, I agree about the tasks. All I can think of now is all the work that the rain has lined up for me in the garden.

Joan Elizabeth said...

Made me think of me ... I grumble about the commuting but the days I work at home I am at my desk all day and work harder than a day at the office. So I gain freedom only to constrain it.

Julie said...

Ah ... should have been 'a deadline WAS a deadline' ... oops ...

Yes, I can see that. I wonder if we don't have a full appreciation of what freedom is. That we only look at the physical dimension of 'freedom'.

Living in the mullock heaps of Bangladesh, the people are free but have no freedom. Rather than being free, they are more just abandoned.

rallentanda said...

I love that cat.