As Time Approaches Zero

No one knew from where he came. The Purple Cat just appeared one day. Somehow very different from all of the other domestic cats, his manner was unique.

The other cats on our farm truly looked domesticated. It was obvious from their fuzzy and frilly features they had spent thousands of years living among humans. Their features were soft and rounded. Their senses dulled and reactions attenuated by the external forces of human domestication.

The Purple Cat looked out of place with animals such as these because he suffered no such shortcomings. Although definitely domesticated, he seemed more akin to a North American Gray Cougar than a domestic cat. The Purple Cat’s coat was short and sleek, the color of anthracite in sunlight. The shelter of shadows and low light created an eerie blue-purple cast on his gray coat similar to the dark, nearly absent color of earthly objects after dusk. At night he was no more visible than a shadow. And like the Cougar, a creature of the darkness as well as the light.

His domain extended far beyond that of a nine-year-old, my age at the time, and he had no owner as far as anyone knew. He would occasionally accept food, scraps from our table, but he never ate with the other cats. Mostly he seemed fond of field mice and small barn rats that he would sometimes, unexplainably, leave on the back porch. It could be easily concluded these were paybacks for the table scraps, but I suspected differently. We possessed an affinity for each other, the Purple Cat and I, which allowed special insight into his actions.

Living in a rural location with no other children my age afforded me plenty of time for observation. Being a somewhat introverted child with an intense curiosity gave plenty of motivation and time to ponder. The Purple Cat was one of my favorite curiosities.

I observed him mostly from a distance. Unlike the other cats, he was not particularly frightened of my presence. Yet, he rarely allowed me to touch or pet him. He was tolerant of my company in the same way cows and livestock are tolerant of birds that sometimes gather around their feet. I observed him in the same manner Native Americans observed animals in their natural surroundings and tried to gather general truths about human existence. He was a perfect study for this – domesticated enough to allow close observation yet wild enough to possess many of the traits that had served his ancestors well for nearly one million years. My ancestors, descendants of the Cro-Magnon clan of modern man, had lived on this planet only a brief thirty-five thousand years. I thought, perhaps as the Native Americans did, that it should be possible to learn a great deal about myself from this animal. And being a member of a relatively new species to the planet with an extremely uncertain future, I felt privileged for the honor.

Conclusions were easy in the case of the Purple Cat. He possessed little of the higher level inaccurate and imprecise reasoning ability we call intelligence. The cat lived in a universe governed by basic logic and instinct. He possessed none of the higher level cognitive distractions that humans use to distort what is simple, what is true, and what is real. He did not have the ability to abstract the obvious.

His neurological circuitry could be described in computer terms as consisting largely of Read Only Memory (ROM) or what would be called biological instinct. Instinct and ROM are permanent and unchangeable. In contrast, most of a human’s memory could be considered Random Access Memory (RAM), meaning it is re-programmable. Death destroys most of our memory completely; it has to be relearned in the next generation. This is in contrast to instinct that is carried in the genes through the generations. Or in the case of the computer, while the power is off until it is needed again.

The Purple Cat could be seen on overcast winter days in the twenty-acre clearing behind our house. The thick, dead grass in light colored clumps provided a haven for all kinds of small animals and rodents from the borders of the surrounding woods. In the warmth of my bedroom gable, I watched him hunt. He appeared as a small dim shadow against the backdrop of the dead grasses. Observing him from a high vantage required great patience and concentration. His movement was at times so slow that fixation was easily lost and difficult to regain.

When a programmer creates a new program, Random Access Memory is usually used. The computer contains the program in RAM, in part, because it is highly unlikely that the programming will be initially defect-free. Changes can easily be made in RAM, unlike ROM which is permanent. When the programmer is certain all defects (bugs) are eliminated, he has the option of “burning” the program into ROM, where the application is appropriate, thereby making it permanent and unchangeable. Because it is permanent, an appropriate application would be the very core of the computer system for functions that are necessary for the basic operation of the system – the things that never change such as how to read input and display output. This is called the BIOS (Basic Input Output System), and every computer contains some form of it. In fact, all living creatures contain varying amounts of it.

It was in his BIOS – Read Only Memory programming – which contained his instinct and basic essence, in which The Purple Cat excelled. His BIOS had been written and updated through, perhaps, a hundred thousand revisions (generations) of his ancestors, all defects being purged in the process. Unlike humans, his BIOS contain all of the detailed information necessary for his species to survive in harmony with its environment.

One had only to watch the efficiency and precision of his hunting skills to appreciate the perfection and robustness of his programming. He stalked his prey with a clarity of thought and concentration that even the best humans are unable to achieve. Like the coherent wavelengths of a laser focused on its target, his thoughts and energies were channeled into a single stream of intense present-moment consciousness.

When stalking prey, he operated in what an electrical engineer would call “closed loop feedback mode,” a mode of operation in which input and output are combined to create a closed system unable to deviate even in the slightest amount from its intended purpose. When a system is operating in this manner it is said to be “locked.” Indeed, once the Purple Cat’s attention converged on his prey and locked into its program, nothing could change it.

I watched him hunt in the loft of an old hay barn many times. He sat for hours, completely still and absolutely quiet. The light rustle of straw from the movement of a mouse riveted his attention, and his eyes focused in the direction of the sound. His facial expression changed from mildly relaxed to intense. Movement in the hay was visually localized while his body drew rigid and crouched into a low stance. The definite figure of a mouse now could be discerned, and the total energy of his entire biological system converged on the target. Lock was achieved. Operating in full feedback closed-loop mode, every movement of the target reinforced the intensity of the loop. At this point the focused stream of consciousness was so strong, death would have been the only way to break it. The Purple Cat uncoiled his pent-up energy in a single leap. Claws extended, he knocked the startled animal’s retreat off balance with the first strike of his paw. With his second, he snagged the animal’s flesh trapping it against the hardwood floor. The sharp incisors of the cat’s mouth keenly crushed the base of the rodent’s skull, rendering it inactive before it had a chance to bite.

The Purple Cat had a distinct advantage in not having to rely often on the Random Access Memory portion of his brain. This part of the brain is called the cerebrum. In humans it is responsible for intelligence and the intellect, but its complexity and high overhead (slowness) makes it almost useless for some tasks. I proved this on several occasions as a nine-year-old using a large bucket. I wanted to believe I had the capacity to catch mice through my superior intellect. Not having sharp claws, I planned to use the bucket as a substitute and trap the animals underneath. Unfortunately the cerebrum in humans is such an integral portion of the neurological system, it is almost impossible to remove its high level functions from one’s stream of consciousness. No matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to achieve the required single-minded concentration of the Purple Cat. My bucket always came up empty.

This is not to say the Purple Cat didn’t possess an intellectual part, though. He did. And he made the best use of it possible. It was used purely for entertainment purposes. Being a naturally curious animal, he loved to explore. On several occasions I was astonished to find him sitting in the outside window of my upstairs bedroom gable. The gable was twenty-five feet from the ground on a sloping roof with a forty-five degree incline. I’m uncertain how he managed this feat but suspect he jumped from the limb of an elm tree on the other side of the house. At any rate, this was one accomplishment I had no desire to duplicate.

He had no real enemies or much fear of other animals. Dogs were a minor exception. Sometimes stray dogs would come in packs and wreck havoc on the lesser animals of the farm, such as chickens and ducks. The Purple Cat regarded the dogs with respect and caution, but not fear. Some were vicious and much larger in size, and could have very easily killed him. He was aware of this fact in the same way that a pedestrian is aware of the lethal consequences of an automobile. And he gave it little regard. There was always a nearby tree or fence and he was familiar with the clumsy and indelicate habits of the dog. They were as predictable to him as cars are to pedestrians, maybe more so. I nervously watched one day while he walked the entire length of the picket fence in the backyard with three large dogs jumping and snapping from below. He walked while delicately balanced on the apex of the pickets. The planks in the hardwood fence were only a half-inch wide and one false step or loss of balance would mean certain death; the dogs were extremely aggravated by the Purple Cat’s arrogance. Although I had no doubts about the cat’s balance, I was less certain that the fence would hold up to the dogs’ ceaseless attack. Fortunately, it was a sturdy fence.

Of all the activities that he did, the Purple Cat seemed to enjoy relaxing the most. His favorite place to relax during the day was under the canopy of grape leaves that completely covered the top of the grape arbor at the edge of the backyard. The large green leaves above the supple vines provided a perfect haven that overlooked the fields, woods, and barn – the Purple Cat’s domain. He would lie on top of the arbor under the shade of the large leaves for many hours each day in a blissful meditative state. I have never seen any animal, human or otherwise, look more peaceful and content.

Normally, as we go about our day-to-day lives, we are constantly aware of time. Our thoughts, what is consciousness for us, include a broad span of time. Although we exist only in the present, these thoughts of past and future are always with us and usually are inseparable. This is, in fact, necessary for our survival since we don’t have a strong low-level program called instinct to fall back on when we encounter an unfamiliar situation. What’s unfortunate about our plight as humans is that it’s so difficult to rid ourselves of the burden of time and intellect. All of our happiest moments in life have one thing in common: no awareness of time while they were occurring – no thoughts of the past and future to interfere with the present moment enjoyment. In humans, this naturally blissful unawareness of time usually requires a significant external stimulus like a person or present moment event to make it happen. Or even, perhaps, many years of meditative practice. But in the case of the Purple Cat, nothing special or external was necessary. He was able to achieve happiness by narrowing the range of his thoughts (consciousness) to include only a brief span of time in the present moment.

We can think of our consciousness as being a long line that extends backward into the past and forward into the future. If we narrow the range of our awareness to include less of the past and less of the future, this segment of the line becomes smaller. This line segment represents time. As we narrow the segment still further, the length of the line segment approaches zero. It is only at this point, with the mind free of the past and free of the future, that peace and contentment can take place. In our conscious world, time can never reach zero. If it did, our thoughts would cease to exist. But time can APPROACH zero. And because this occurs in the physical world so often, there in an entire branch of science devoted to the concept. It is the discipline of mathematics called Calculus. Defined in scientific terms, this peaceful mental state that the Purple Cat so easily achieved while relaxing would be called “the limit of consciousness as time approaches zero (lim C, t -> 0).” Defined in the vernacular of Calculus, this same state would be “the derivative of consciousness with respect to time (dC/dt).” Both statements imply, by rigorous definition of the terminology, that time equals zero is undefined; it can’t be defined because time cannot equal zero, because nothing would exist. Probably half of all scientific knowledge we have today is based on this paradox. [As a side note: if you happen to be a scientist or mathematician, please forgive any inaccuracies caused by over simplification; if you happen to be a purple cat, science is not applicable.]

My most vivid memories of the Purple Cat were his quiet times of contentment under the grape leaves on top of the arbor. It was easy to forget time existed in his presence for his tranquil manner was contagious. Commitments and obligations just seemed to fade. The warmth of the afternoon sun shinning on his coat highlighted a few strands of silver-gray hair that weren’t usually visible. From his timeless lofty sanctuary, he watched over the fields and trees that were his domain with an almost human expression on his long face. His broad nose and gentle eyes looked peaceful, as the afternoon shadows grew longer. He slowly closed his eyes, and the corners of this mouth turned upward in a smile.

The Purple Cat lived among our family for nearly two seasons. One cold day in early spring, he turned up missing. Not a clue as to where he could be found. I looked everywhere and became increasingly concerned as the week dragged on. My parents and grandparents attempted to convince me nothing was wrong. They used logical rationalizations, the stuff science is made of, to explain his absence. But I knew, as did the Purple Cat, that logic was not applicable. Human logic is an oxymoron that defies definition, and is of no use to a cat.

It was late afternoon on a sunny spring Saturday, and without the presence of the Purple Cat to occupy my thoughts, my grandmother was able to convince me to accompany her to the supermarket. I’m sure she thought it would take my mind off “the cat” for a while. When we opened the trunk of the car in the parking lot of the supermarket to load the groceries, we were startled by something moving. For a short instant it was difficult to discern the movement because of the darkness inside the trunk. But after a moment his image became clear. It was the Purple Cat. He had been trapped in the trunk, apparently, for nearly a week and no one had known. His coat was matted and mangled, his claws missing and torn, his paws stained with dried blood. Crazed and irrational, he didn’t know who I was. He attempted to leap from the trunk. Tripping over the fender he fell and hit the pavement, hard. Stumbling clumsily to his feet, he ran. I ran after him. He appeared to be headed for the woods behind a stately old house beyond the parking lot. The parking lot was being extended and was under construction. The old house had beautiful yellow buttercups blooming in the yard above the edge of the construction area.

I called after him, “cat, cat,” and then, “kitty, kitty.” The words sounded idiotic and I felt helpless. He had difficulty running. His back legs didn’t exactly track his front, but he was still faster than I. The undisturbed green grass and flowers at the edge of the woods were five feet higher than the rough clay floor of the construction zone. He attempted to ascend the vertical clay wall by first jumping to a large limestone boulder at its edge. He must have been badly impaired, for he missed the bolder completely and tumbled out of sight into the deep tire tracks left by a large earthmover.

When I made my way to the edge of the tire tracks, he was lying on his side. His legs were outstretched and knees slightly bent; his tail curled loosely as if to form a question mark. Afraid and breathing heavily, he was unable to run. Time for the Purple Cat was rapidly approaching zero. The expression on his long face became calm and complacent. He now seemed to recognize me, and his eyes grew gentle and peaceful. He slowly closed his eyes, and the corners of his mouth turned upward in a smile. The Purple Cat entered the mysterious and undefined domain called time equals zero. He quietly lay down his head, and died.

The fading afternoon sky was clear and buttercups at the top of the rift were in full bloom. The yellow and green were in contrast to the jagged scar of the clay dirt now in the shadows. I wanted to take the Purple Cat home, to bury him at the foot of the grapevines of which he was so fond. But my grandmother wouldn’t allow it. We found a piece of burlap from an old feed sack and draped it over him as he lay in the hard clay tracks. Dirt was pushed from the rim of the tracks until burlap was no longer visible. What was left of the beautiful spring day, turned into darkness.

Large four-wheeled mechanized beasts travel over his grave. Energy for their tiny brains and power for their tremendous strength derived from the liquid organic remain of his prehistoric ancestors. What remains of the Purple Cat resides in oblivion; that scientifically undefined, yet familiar, place between moments in time. Nirvana. Nothingness. Everything.

--Pat Henry
 

Copyright 1992, 2004
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