“Strange really, we don’t know anything about each other, George. I didn’t even tell Thomas much about myself. Truth is, it’s still all a bit sketchy,” reflected Ed with concern.
“Don’t worry, maybe you’ll come back. Anyway, it’s too late now. We’ve arrived,” exclaimed George, as they finally reached the top of the stairwell and a small entrance, through which the gushing wind noise could be heard. A light breeze manoeuvred across them, chilling Ed’s bare chest. George directed his guest over towards the entrance and the point of departure.
“This is it, my friend. Take off your shoes and sit on the edge with your feet dangling down. I’ll need a shoe to throw down the stairs to alert Thomas that you’ve jumped and to get ready with the staff. I’ll count to three and on three, you jump and I’ll push. That’s it; job done. It’s been pleasant meeting you.”
“Thanks, George. Nice meeting you as well,” replied Ed, as he bent down, removed his shoes and sat with his feet over the edge. As he looked into the hole, he could see the windy torrent below gushing from left to right. He was directly above it and starting to feel anxious about the jump. Would there be any impact or pain? Would he become nauseous or disorientated? What other horrors might await him?
“I know what you’re feeling, Ed. Don’t worry, just get on with it.”
“Okay. Thanks again for all your support. It’s only been a short time but I’ll miss you both,” replied Ed nervously.
“Maybe we’ll meet again one day. We’ll still be here, the keepers of the flame eternal. Anyway, are you ready?”
“Ready as I will ever be,” replied Ed tensely.
“What if I land on one of the people, souls or whatever they are in the current?”
“Maybe it’ll help you if anything. Perhaps it would cut the risk of going right through. I don’t know, to be honest.”
Ed stared down motionless into the gushing torrent. George could see the tension building and felt he needed to lighten the atmosphere a little.
“What do you call a flea on the moon, no, a crazy flea on the moon?”
Ed stared back round at the dressing-gown-clad individual, slippers looking even more ridiculous in this setting.
“What?”
“What do you call a….” Ed interrupted,
“I know; I just can’t believe this is the right time for a joke. Anyway, what do you call a crazy flea on the moon, George?”
“A Lunar-Tic, a Lunar-Tic, get it?” announced George proudly, bursting out into an uncontrolled giggle.
“Whatever. Now you’ve really made me want to jump,” replied Ed wryly as he glanced up at George’s grinning face before turning to face the abyss once more.
“Good. Shall we go then, Ed?”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s do it,” replied Ed apprehensively.
“Good. I’ll throw the shoe down, give it a few seconds to get to the bottom and for Thomas to be prepared, and then we go. Are you clear? One, two and then we push on three.”
“Yes, good as gold. I’m still full of hope though that this is all nothing more than a dream and I’m about to wake up to a big mug of coffee.”
“Don’t bank on it.”
“I won’t. Anyway, let’s do it and stop talking.”
George hurled the shoe down the stairs. It clattered in increasingly distant thuds as it descended to the bottom. The few seconds’ delay felt like an hour to Ed. He was more than reluctant to jump into the ferocious flow.
“I would think of a prayer right now, but I’m having serious doubts about God,” interjected Ed ironically as George began to count.
“ONE.”
“TWO.”
Then before he got to three, he gave Ed a sturdy push in his back, projecting him speedily out and down into the speeding flow of souls.
“Arrhhhhhhhhh,” exclaimed Ed helplessly, before being tossed, turned, pummelled, aggressed and finally caught fully in the merciless central flow. Whoosshhhhh and there it was again, the fiery laser-like bright light, this time moving like a bullet train towards him. It got louder and louder, brighter and brighter until, zzaappp. Nothing. Sensory deprivation. No sound. No light. No feelings. No cares. No sensations. Nothing and nothing. A darkness that soon overcame all his consciousness. He disappeared.
Chapter 8
Get Smunky
“Dad, what’s a Coalition?”
“Basically it’s when a man without a head is rushed bleeding to the hospital, and they sew an arse on top to block up the hole in his neck.”
“Wow, that’s horrible; he’d crap from both ends.”
“Yep, that’s about the long and the short of it, Ali,” concluded the plump middle-aged man, entrenched in a comfortable-looking, but cheap leather reclining chair. The TV blurted out the news, focused on the new dual party alliance that had been the disappointing outcome of an election full of hope.
“Sweeping legislation, big society, massive shake up, positive reforms, more changes than since 1832. A load of baloney if you ask me. They’ll be just like the last lot, fraudulent and sleazy.”
“I couldn’t care less, dad. They’re so old and boring. Why do politicians have to be boring old farts? They’re about as exciting as a slug under a paving slab,” interjected young Ali, a quickly growing thirteen-year-old teenager, riveted to his laptop and ever-expanding social network.
Similar as Ali was to his father, the pair weren’t great lookers by any means. Slightly fat-headed, though not in a thuggish way, their heads sat upon their chunky necks like medicine balls on tree trunks. Their voluntarily short cropped hair gave them slightly more of an aerodynamic feel but that was combated by protuberant ears that jutted out gracelessly in a way not too dissimilar to a hippo. Their rounded features made their heads look even more spherical, as though they had been sanded into shape by someone who simply forgot to stop. It was like seeing a baby elephant with its parent, identical in everything apart from size.
He sported an ill fitting and extrovertly multicoloured stripy tracksuit top, whilst his dad was equally casual with jeans and an anonymous white tee shirt. They were the perfect pair.
“Is that computer still playing up?” queried Frank, his single-parent father, a bricklayer from
South London
.
“Yeah,” replied Ali as he swivelled round in the bargain computer chair and gave a disgruntled face-scrunch in his father’s direction.
“Well I don’t know anything about them. Can’t see why you bloody well bother with it anyway. Games and instant messages. Why don’t you just call someone and go and play in the park? In my day you just needed a ball and a patch of grass and that was it for the week. That’s why we have football geniuses like Rooney and Messi, because they had a ball in the street and not a nose in a faulty laptop.”
Frank cranked the recliner back fully, perched a pillow under his head, and went quiet.
“It’s not a faulty laptop. There’s some temporary glitch. Anyway, at least you’ll shut up now,” replied Ali as he span back round to the computer.
“Oh no, it’s frozen up again. I can’t do anything,” he exclaimed as he tapped furiously at every key of the QWERTY keyboard, furiously wiggling the mouse.
“It’s now 6.30 and time for the news where you are,” sounded from the TV, followed by the characteristic
“A man has been arrested in Hoxton after being caught carrying two holdalls full of guns and ammunition, along with a large amount of cash and class A drugs hidden in condoms.”
“The clergy has announced it will be investigating the molestation of more than a dozen choir boys in one of their Islington churches. Two priests have already been charged for alleged offences in the early nineties.”
“The mayor of
London
has criticised transport workers for going on strike, claiming they have been offered a fair 0.5% pay rise. The union for the workers has replied, criticising plans to completely scrap all pension schemes.”
“Tottenham Hotspur football club are contesting the rule to close their ground temporarily for excavation after the discovery of an ancient Roman burial site under the centre circle.”
Ed was just starting to come round and could hear the voices getting closer and closer, clearer and clearer until his eyelids, seemingly spring-loaded, suddenly shot open. No pain, no dehydration or thirst and no headache. Truth be told, he was quite comfortably placed on a sofa. Could he have been reborn as a human?
As things came into focus, he could see he was in some sort of large residential room, tatty but bright. The velvet wallpaper was well past its sell-by date with corners peeling away and bubbles forming at the bottom, invaded by damp. The yellowish, stained skirting board was chipped and dented, probably by a
Hoover
, and the central dining table and chairs were a dulled and tattered pine. The saving grace was the big three-paned window at the front which let in gushes of light, even with the grey overcast conditions outside.
Ed started to feel his arms and legs, twisted his head from side to side to loosen his neck, and cautiously looked down to what the lottery of the transience had dished up for him.
Glossy deep black fur with white super-fluffy paws. He stretched them out and began a yawn with a stretch that rippled through his whole body. He looked down to see a set of four legs, each with outstretched retractable claws. They were impressive and aggressive, ready for scratching and piercing, and jet black in contrast to the brilliant white paws. He twitched his facial muscles in a way he had never done before and became aware of an intense sensitivity which seemed to give him what felt like a new sense.
It must be whiskers
, he thought, as he stood up and arched his back upwards before slumping down into a comfortable ball once more.
This is a whole lot better than a tortoise
, he mused, as he bathed in the comfort of the moment, feeling the odourless air pressure of a slight but barely noticeable draught across his face and whiskers.
“Oh for Chrissake, what is going on?” cried the boy, losing his cool at the frozen PC laptop.
“
Control, alt, delete.
Control, alt, delete. Then close down the offending program in the Windows task manager. Not rocket science, dude,” exclaimed Ed, omitting only a wide range of audible cat purrs and growls in the process.
“Shut up, moggie,” shouted Ali angrily before resuming his unscientific endeavours to get the computer functioning. Continued random tapping on the keyboard and jerky mouse movements did nothing to resolve the situation as his anger started to rise like steam in a pressure cooker.
“Oh, fuck it,” exclaimed the teenager as he bent down to pull the plug from the wall.
“Don’t swear,” shouted Frank, not disturbing his reclined position or closed eyes.
“Oh no, not at the wall. Don’t pull the plug out at the wall, use the reset button you moron,” yowled Ed, as the young man did exactly the opposite.
Ali span round, pissed off at the animal noises coming from the cat, and seething from the powerlessness evoked by the faulty computer.
“I’ve told you before, don’t get on the sofa. Are you thick or something?”
With that he leapt out of his computer chair and proceeded with haste over towards Ed, grabbing his fur coat behind his head and carrying him swinging like a six-pack into the kitchen. Once inside, he tossed him from waist-high onto the kitchen floor. Instinct kicked in immediately and Ed’s legs splayed out to cushion the blow, large feline paw pads acting to reduce any impact from the landing.
It was a sensational feeling: the large pad and four satellite pads under each paw landed on the floor as he cascaded down into a crouched position and then back upright, arching his back in an upwards curve. His whiskers were super-sensitive, almost like a second set of eyes feeling out the location of objects around him whilst his tail counterbalanced him with delicate and subtle movements. He felt like he was gimbal mounted.
“Do something useful and eat your food. It’s been there all day. What’s up with you?”
Ali slammed the door and retreated back to the living room, leaving Ed in the kitchen alone. Lo and behold, there in the corner was a bowl of cat food and a saucer of milk. He looked around the small room. There were white artificial looking cabinets, washing machine, oven and virtually everything one would expect in a low budget kitchen. The beige patterned lino on the floor was slightly padded but wearing thin and torn in places. The kitchen was in urgent need of an overhaul.
Next to the sink he could see piles of dirty washing-up and a solitary marigold glove hanging over the side with under-whelmed limpness. He ambled over towards the food, his legs instinctually following the walking pattern; back left, front left, back right, front right, back left, front left, back right, front right and so on, like an elegant four-legged centipede feeling proud of itself.
Mysteriously mathematical, but very satisfying
, mused Ed, as he neared the food wondering how he would get on with it. It had not been a favourite for him as a human. It smelt good though as he moved his head over the small bowl. He started licking it, piece by piece before biting the bullet and getting his feline fangs involved in the extraction of the first whole lump. It was slightly oily, covered in flecks of semi-translucent jelly, but felt like proper cuts of meat. He tossed it up and down in a kind of juggling motion between his teeth before getting it into the optimum position for consumption. The flavour exploded as he took it fully into his mouth and sliced it apart with his sharp, white teeth.
It might not be too bad here for a few days
, he thought, as he finished the first piece and went about clearing out the rest of the bowl, finishing up with a refreshing drink of milk, just like when he was a little boy.
I seriously hope they don’t have a dog
, he thought, as he began to explore the kitchen, a quick process due to the size. To the left of the food bowl was a comfortable-looking cat basket, complete with blanket and small furry pillow.
Excellent
, he thought, as he looked forward to a few nights’ safe and comfortable sleep. Around the corner from the washing machine and sandwiched between it and the fridge was the door to the garden, a cheap plastic door, glazed at the top with pseudo Georgian inserts, partly falling away at the sides.
The bottom of the door intrigued Ed the most. A plastic cat flap about seven inches square led out into the garden. This would be vital for him to get out when the time came for the next transience. He butted his head against the flap and out into the small alleyway which led down into the main garden, leaving the flap swinging back and forth in his absence. The garden was small, probably about twenty-five feet long and as wide as the semi-detached two-storey house. At the back there was a small patio door which led out to the garden from another small room.
I would’ve knocked that through into the living room
, thought Ed, as he made his way into the overgrown mess of the garden, reflecting that his new guardians were obviously not the green-fingered sort. He danced into the un-mown grass, keen to test his jumping and climbing skills. It was such a welcome contrast to being a tortoise. His whiskers were ever aware, jetting out like flexible laser beams of hair from his snout. It was an extreme sensation.
Eagerly, with his agile, feline legs, he jumped up and down out of the grass on the spot, over and over again, up and down like a jack-in-the-box.
“Dad, come and look at this, Smunky has gone mad in the garden. He’s just jumping up and down like a lunatic,” shouted Ali from behind the thin glass conservatory door.
“Whatever,” replied Frank, uninterested in the whole situation.
Great, so I’m called Smunky! Why, why Smunky? What the hell does it mean?
Ed stopped his acrobatics and used his legs to jump up onto the fence. However, being new to the cat kingdom he had no idea of his own strength and completely misjudged it, clearing the fence to land in the bush next door.
“Dad, Dad, you’ll never believe what he’s done now.”
“Shut up for Chrissake, I’m trying to get some rest,” barked Frank, as Ali went back into the living room to see his computer giving him the dreaded ‘frozen blue screen’ treatment once more.