The Bug in the Lamp

I had been journeying for several days when I occasioned to stay at the Château Hotel, with only my cat Artemis for companionship. Artemis, a mewling, foul-tempered feline, sat in her leather carrier under my seat as we crossed the countryside by train, crying from beneath me at regular intervals. We disembarked the train in Wilson's Corners although we were still nearly a full day's train ride from our destination; I was growing very tired and could not find a comfortable way to arrange myself around the cat carrier. Vowing to conclude our journey on the first train the next morning, I arranged for my main luggage to continue to Brownsville, and we got off into the chill night air.

We were directed to a place called the Château Hotel, and set off for the hotel on a crisp, cold evening in late October. Indian Summer had been and gone, and the temperature dropped considerably once we had boarded the train. Dry, autumnal leaves blew around my feet as I walked, carrying my suitcase in one hand and Artemis in her carrier in the other. I was grateful that, despite the warm weather as I packed for our move to Brownsville, I had worn my coat and scarf on the trip, which I wrapped tightly around me, buttoned right to the collar against the chilly evening.

We found the hotel in the last strains of daylight, its sign on a post by the street- Château Hotel, est. 1803, it read. A charming building with a weathervane on its tallest peak, with a huge, gnarled oak spreading through its dooryard. Multicolored leaves swept against its wraparound porch like high tide. Electric lights glowed in all the ground-floor windows, a cozy, homey shimmer that beckoned us in from the chill evening.

We entered the foyer of the hotel and approached the front desk, where the proprietor stood. A tall, thin man with gauzy sheets of white hair and dark, chocolate-brown eyes, he smiled as Artemis and I crossed the exquisite foyer.

"Welcome to the Château Hotel," he said with a sweeping gesture of his arm. "I am Garrison Finestra, proprietor. You would like a room for the night?"

"Indeed," I said to him. "One night, please, a room for myself and my cat.”

"Not a problem at all, sir," Finestra said. He pulled out the hotel register, and I signed for the room. "Your room will be the third door on the third, uppermost floor. You'll have a fine sunrise, should you be up so early."

"That would be lovely," I replied, finishing my signature with a flourish. "It seems like a very fine hotel, very nice and clean. I don't doubt the view will be quite charming come morning." I set the quill pen in the spine of the book and slid it back toward him; in turn, he slid a key on a fine metal ring across to me. “I might ask, would I be able to order a bottle of brandy to be brought up in an hour?”

"Absolutely, sir, one hour,” he said, making a note. “I trust you'll find your room quite comfortable. And thank you for complimenting our cleanliness here, sir. We pride ourselves on it. Not a mote of dust, not a pest to be found." He puffed out his chest as he spoke.

"Thank you, Mr. Finestra." The hotel was indeed lovely. Everything was a buttery, burnished wood inside, with ornate carvings around the doorways and the stairs. I found my door, where the key turned easily, and we went inside. The room itself was very nicely furnished and decorated. The window did indeed face east, although there was little to see in the dark, barely lit spectral fingers of the huge front lawn oak just beyond the thick glass panes.

Shutting the door behind me, I opened the cat carrier and Artemis strolled out, looking- as cats do- indignant at being shut up for so long. She flicked her tail at me, licked her lips, and jumped down off the bed, sniffing around at her new environment.

Artemis has been my companion for near onto three years now, a roly-poly gray-orange tabby with a cranky demeanor and a near-constant voice. She was a well-kept and well-fed house cat, but periodically would go outside and was an excellent hunter. She had been a gift for my beloved, who was deceased over a year now. I couldn't simply open the door and let the cat go feral, so although I initially had no affinity for cats, I kept her myself. She helped keep the silence of my suddenly empty house from driving me insane. After a year of living alone, I desperately needed a change. Of course, I brought Artemis with me when I relocated. I cannot say that she enjoyed traveling, but we made the best of it. Her carrier had a small food bowl and water, as well as a litter compartment at the back. She had all she would need. I withdrew from my case papers I wished to review and laid them out on the writing desk.

The room had electric light, but there was an oil lamp at the writing desk. Ornate to match the rest of the hotel decor, it had a large, bulbous glass covering that was a frosted white. I found my matches in my breast pocket and lit the lamp. The flame it emitted cast a soft light that was excellent for reading.

Time escaped me then, for it seemed only moments later a knock came at the door. I could see the cat, still exploring around, her ears pricked up at the sound of the knock. Her wide, attentive eyes were scanning for the source of the sound, her stubby body rigid at attention. I opened the door, Mr. Finestra stood outside with a bottle of brandy and a glass on a tray.

"Your brandy, sir," he said. He entered the room and set the tray on a bare corner of the writing desk. "I see your small friend is making herself at home." He nodded slightly toward Artemis, still at fervent attention.

"Oh yes," I said with a small laugh. "She's been patrolling the room since I let her out of her carrier. Quite the hunter, this one. If you have any rats in the cellar, I'm sure you'd be able to borrow her services."

"Oh, we have no rats here, sir," Finestra replied. I thought, just for the most fleeting moment, I saw a cloud cross his face, resentful at me implying there might be rats.

"I have no doubt. The Château seems an exemplary place, Mr. Finestra."

"Yes, indeed it is," he said, his shoulders relaxing slightly. "We've never had a pest problem here at all." He paused for just the barest second. "Will you be requiring anything else this evening?"

"No, thank you, sir," I said. "I’ve taken a teaching position, and I have some paperwork to read over. That will keep me occupied, but I anticipate an early night."

"Good night then, sir, and congratulations on your new post." He showed himself out, pulling the door closed behind him with a soft click. I turned and Artemis relaxed, beginning to methodically wash her face with her forepaw. She looked drowsy and content, and I must confess I was starting to feel the same way. The room was warm but pleasant, and I was starting to feel the pull of the bed. I pulled the stopper out of the brandy and poured a knock of it, hoping to feel as warm on the inside as out, and able to concentrate enough to read.

Minutes later, as I was absorbed in my reading, Artemis leapt up onto the writing desk, startling me. So silent the hunter! She was tensed up again, and I could see a fine line of her gray hairs standing up the length of her back. I followed her stare—there was a tiny shadow moving inside the oversized glass of the lamp on the desk.

"Get down, Artemis," I said firmly, setting the syllabus on the desktop between her and the lamp. "It's just a bug in the lamp." The tiny shadow moved, up away from the flame of the lamp. It appeared to be a housefly. The cat stared hard at it, her tail out rigid behind her, the tip flicking back and forth spastically, the hair on her back still on end. She growled, a low sound from deep in her throat, and I felt a slight tingle in my own spine. It was unlike her to focus so intently.

With a speed only a cat can know, her haunches twitched slightly, and she sprang at the shadow. Her powerful back legs propelled her chubby frame across the desk and knocked the bottle of brandy over, glass too, spilling the amber liquor. And as she reached the lamp, focusing only on the shadow of the bug, she crashed headlong into it, knocking it over.

I watched in what seemed to be slow motion as the oil lamp skidded across the desk under Artemis’s weight, tipping, keeling, and finally falling over the edge of the writing desk. The lamp, with wick burning, crashed to the floor, followed a split-second later by the bulbous glass, which shattered into large shards.

I reached down and snatched the body of the lamp up off the carpet where it landed. I turned to see the bug- a fly of some kind, and strangely larger than it seemed inside the lamp glass—flittering up, with the cat leaping and swatting after. I glanced back, and the carpet did indeed have a black crescent-shaped burn on it where the flame had landed and rolled, but no serious damage. I thanked the heavens that the ceramic body of the lamp, full of oil, had not shattered like the glass cover. I quickly shut off the lamp valve, and the wick died down to a faintly glowing tip.

Artemis leapt after the escaping fly, and as I watched, she batted the fly clean out of the air with a swipe of her paw! The fly was actually quite large, I noted. I had thought it a housefly, but perhaps the curved surface of the inside of the lamp glass distorted its shadow? I could hear the faint buzzing drone of its wings stutter as Artemis hit it, and it spiraled down to the ground out of sight behind the desk

"Oh, my papers," I moaned. I fetched towels from the bureau and worked frantically trying to dry the papers. I blotted the best I could, but the pages were soaked and beginning to smudge and curl before my eyes. I could hear her paws stomping around, still out of sight behind the desk. Curiously, I noted that I could also still hear the fly's wings buzzing. It seemed they had grown louder. I could still hear those horrible growls coming from her, normally such a mild-mannered, although cranky, cat; there was something wild and primal in the sounds that frightened me. Also, I thought I could hear the body of the insect bumping against the wall, but it was only a fly; how could I hear such a small thing? I could see the very tip of the cat's tail, flicking back and forth. The rest of her was obscured by the desk. Curious as to what was happening, I reached down and moved the desk aside.