We know from literature that if anyone is ever surprisingly unavailable for work, it is because they have turned into an enormous bug. Obviously, this is the first and best theory regarding the whereabouts of Catherine, Princess of Wales: She is exercising her Kafka privileges and has turned into an insect, as a metaphor.
The downside of turning into an insect is you never know how long the metamorphosis is going to last, but the upside is that you can just lie around the house for a bit, stridulating, an opportunity princesses get far too seldom.
However, there is one problem with this theory — yes, only one problem, I’m sure of it. The problem is that this is the wrong literature to look to. Franz Kafka was Czech; Kate Middleton is not. We must therefore look to British literature instead. Fortunately, it, too, is full of answers. Perhaps Catherine …
- Stepped into the wrong palace wardrobe by mistake and got stuck in a land where it is always winter but never Christmas. Although she appears to have been gone only for months in our earthly scale, it has been lifetimes for Catherine. She has seen epochs rise and fall, gone on adventures impossible to recount and is living a whole existence in another kind of time. When she returns, she will barely recognize her surroundings and not remember how to use a cellphone, and she might have to be removed from the zoo for yelling at the lions for being “too metaphorically heavy-handed.”
- Tripped and fell into a small rabbit hole on the palace grounds and to get back home must win a game of something called flamingo croquet. She unfortunately is not very good at flamingo croquet, and none of the controlled substances offered to her by a local caterpillar are helping.
- Took at face value Winnie-the-Pooh’s promise not to eat so much honey that his body would plug up the exit to Rabbit’s House while attempting to leave, trapping them all inside.
- Put on a ring she forgot she won in a riddling game years ago just to surprise people at her birthday, but now there’s a whole situation she needs to go on a long foot journey to resolve.
- Is wuthering, on a height.
- Has isolated after months of experimentation with a potion that will sever human personality into its two component parts. Rejected by the medical establishment, she tests the potion on herself. Now there has been no sign of the princess for months, but there is an unfamiliar female figure slinking around outside the palace in sweatpants, sneakers and a messy bun, squinting into cameras with her mouth open and conspicuously neglecting her skin-care regimen. The figure claims not to know Catherine, but known associates of hers keep trying to get her to drink something, and she says she doesn’t want to.
- Was driven by hubris to become a modern Prometheus and build a hideous creature of enormous size and bring it to life with galvanism, but unfortunately she forgot to make a bride for it, and it is upset, so she has had to flee to the Arctic! She was last seen leaping from ice floe to ice floe to evade the grotesque figure of her pursuer.
- Was seized by the villainous cat Macavity (there’s no one like Macavity!), who refuses to give her back. (I am being told that T.S. Eliot is American, not British, but T.S. Eliot is denying it.)
- Has been sent to Bridget Jones’s Locker.
- Made a deal with Mephistopheles that resulted in having to spend years touring various sites in history and myth but still hasn’t been impressed by any of them.
- Got invited to a mysterious island party by U.N. Owen, probably because U.N. Owen is a big fan. HMM, BUT IT’S MURDER!
- Was overdue for her stint in a lake distributing swords.
- Exited, pursued by a bear.
