Jonathan was average. Mousey hair, slight of build, and eyes that had the tendency to never change colour. Brown they were and brown they stayed, much to the sullen disappointment of the ex-lovers of his high school years. He now held a full-time job, reluctantly and successfully auditing accounts of people who would rather not have their accounts audited, enjoyed pubbing with his male mates and commenting on current affairs with the adverby language of a man who reads plenty headlines. He adopted a kitten upon moving into his own apartment — a fiesty and restless creature who grew up to be dim and discontent, not unlike his current girlfriend, but there are theories that she was perhaps born like that. Dim, not a cat. He had, at one point in his life, considered dating “smart women” — a category he believed he had coined himself and of which he had once spoken so highly. However, in practice he didn’t particularly appreciate their irreverence for his news-headline thoughts, or their multifarious ambitions, of which he had none. After a few stuttering dates, he concluded that such women were simply deeply dissatisfied. He didn’t specify with what.

​

And so Jonathan skulked along with his pleasant girlfriend and cat, auditing things and debating other things. One of the millions Deus created — ‘insulation’ the gods called it. Little dots and spots born everywhere, creating the blotchy background on which the stars of the show pranced. The silent and satisfied provided a good canvas for their more ephemeral proclivities. However, it so turned out that Jonathan’s averageness became the catalyst from which great things would happen, unbeknownst to himself, his girlfriend and his discontent cat.

​

…