I write therefore I think.

Since before I even met you.

Having just having just watched the repeat of Doctor Who late one Sunday evening I was sitting there, staring out the window, when my cat piped-up.

"Have you concidered writing dialouge?"

I was most startled. It was almost as if she was reading my mind.

"No, why?"

"No reason. It's just that you're wondering what you can do."

"Oh, Miss 'I can't read your mind'" thinking that nested quotes drive me spare, "you know this how?"

"Well," said my cat - pausing only to lick a paw, "sitting staring at your screensaver for more than thirty seconds usually means you're thinking 'what' kind of thoughts."

"Oh it does, does it?" I was getting irritated. Using her ears to punctuate does that to me. Not sure why. Envy I suppose.

"Anyway, I was thinking," she said, looking at me with big sad eyes, "perhaps dialouge would be a clever way of overcomming your fear of punctuation."

"I'm not afraid of punctuation!"

"Yes you are. And reading that Panda punctuation book didn't help."

"'Eats shoots and leaves'?"

"Yes. And your education didn't help"

"It didn't"

"No, see you never realised that the point was to learn stuff; you really did think the point was to get the highest marks; And you and I both know you could never really summon-up the enthusiasm to care about that"

Well I started wondering about normality.

"And?"

Well I've come to the conclusion that I'm atypical.

Great, so that makes you better than everyone else?

No. Because I've also decided that everyone is atypical; that words like 'typical' and 'average' only work when you consider the big picture; when you get down to the individual it all falls to pieces. It's a bit like quantum physics.

Is drawing parallels to physics in argument really necissary?

Well, no. it just sort of happens.

Hmm. particle-memetics; quantum-sociology; what next?

Not only that but I've also come to the conclusion that all concepts of 'right' and 'wrong' are arbitrary beause the drepend of fundamental assumptions which are little more than value-judgements.

"I'm a cat," my cat said as she stood and stretched. "I know the secret of the universe."

"Which is?"

"card-board."

"CARD-BOARD!?

"Yep; now, if you'll excuse me I need to go sit by my food bowl until you remember to feed me," as she flicked her tail and wandered off muttering something about 'Staff'.

It's been two years since I wrote this. Only now do I see what she meant. And now I see I knew it all along. I just didn't know I knew. Now I have a name for the ghost in my machine; together we'll find each other; My number is seven.