THE PRICE by Neil Gaiman

Short Story Review: THE PRICE by Neil Gaiman

The Price is about a black cat that turns up at Neil's house. After sharing space with this cat for a month, one morning it turns up, ‘almost unrecognisable’. He’s beaten, tired, and thin. He’s taken to the Vet, patched up, and taken care of, but the fighting continues. ‘Each night the scratches would be worse – one night his side would be chewed up, the next it would be his underbelly, raked with claw marks and bloody to the touch’.

The cat is confined to the basement to recover. ‘The four days that the Black Cat lived in the basement were a bad four days in my household’. On that fourth night the Black Cat prowls the basement pining to be let out, and once freed, returns to its diligent watch. By morning, the wounds and scratches have appeared again – but good luck has returned to the house.

Neil decides enough is enough and devises a plan to discover the culprit of the overnight attacks. Armed with see-in-the-dark binoculars, he sets up to watch.

It’s the Devil who comes down the driveway. ‘The thing that comes to my house does not come every night. But it comes most nights: we know it by the wounds on the cat, and the pain I see in those leonine eyes.’

I love this story because I love the idea of cats as ‘protectors’ or ‘angels’. I also happen to be a lover of cats, so this story pulls at my heart strings.

It’s written in an autobiographical style to give it a realistic feel. It reveals some of the author’s idiosyncrasies, including collecting unusual toys, such as see-in-the-dark binoculars, which, if written by anyone else, might seem far-fetched.

The mystery of why the Devil is singling out this household is never revealed, neither is anything else regarding the Devil. The story is purely homage to a great creature. Because of this the plot is not resolved at the end. But that just adds to the tension of the story. It makes for a great ‘edge of your seat’ ending, the last paragraph – amazing.

There is no dialogue in this piece. It’s the author’s thoughts and story-telling alone which move the story.