square, and unusual as it had writing on it, but most unusual of all, was
that it had appeared out of nowhere.
At just that moment, Erwin had decided once more to venture his
door and see if his mortal foe was still there. Erwin looked outside and
found to his relief that the Cat had indeed disappeared: it was nowhere to
be seen. There was now, however, a small white cube sitting menacingly
on his bedroom floor.
Erwin slammed the door again, and began to sweat profusely.
-It's an egg- he thought quickly, and began to search through his
memories to see if eggs could possibly be construed as being dangerous.
After another moment he realized they were, though he couldn't quite
fathom why they might be, it was just one of those things eggs did: they
were dangerous.
-What do I do, what do I do!- thought Erwin frantically, trapped as
he was between a wardrobe and an egg.
It was a conundrum. It was a problem. It was ridiculous! Erwin
suddenly realized, remembering eggs weren't dangerous at all, you eat
eggs! You don't hide in cupboards from them.
-Yes!- thought Erwin, - I'm not afraid of eggs!-, but then he
frowned as he wondered if just maybe he should be. It was indeed a
problem and Erwin wasn't too good with problems.
Suddenly in a blinding quagmire of inspiration, Erwin found the
solution.
-I'll be a Chicken Rancher!- he thought with wild abandon,
throwing all intelligence to the cognitive wind, -Chickens should be
terrified of chicken farmers, it stands to reason.- Erwin paused in his
thoughts, as he wasn't too sure what 'Reason' was supposed to be, but
quickly continued on, reflecting he could always figure it out at some
later date.
Thereupon, Erwin reached up into the corner of the cupboard and
took down a battered old black raincoat, which was missing both its
sleeves and had the words 'Moscow Conservatory of Music' stenciled in
large yellow lettering across its back. He slipped this on. Erwin had never
been able to properly explain the raincoat's existence, beyond the fact,
that forty years ago his now deceased great uncle Oswald, had spent an
amazing three weeks trapped inside a Turkish bath house in Istanbul
learning how to belly dance while deciphering the Russian Consular
General's socks: admittedly this never adequately explained the raincoat
but, nevertheless, Erwin found it to be a hell of a good conversation piece.
Erwin then dragged out an even more tattered pair of great black
gumboots with the words Trans-Siberian Railway written on their sides.
