A Survivor's Guide to Eternity (13 page)
Meanwhile, Ed had landed upside down in a prickly thorny bush and was wriggling and twisting his body to get free. With a yank and a jerk, he suddenly spun out and fell three or so feet to the ground, uprighting himself in flight and landing on a soft mown lawn, legs splayed out.
Mmm, that’s a cool design
, thought the cat, as he shook himself down and began casually strolling across the garden.
“You scummy little bastard, what have you done to my bush?” suddenly rang out from Ed’s left. He glanced round with surprise to see a red-faced and very angry old man proceeding towards him, clutching with angst to his Zimmer frame as he made very slow progress. He looked as though years of poverty had worn away at his body, whilst years of misery had slowly eroded his character. Tatty grey tweed trousers, baggy and torn, hung from his thin hips, a brown leather belt ambitiously trying to retain enough tension to avoid embarrassment. This was crowned with a grubby white shirt adorned with thin blue stripes and a purple synthetic tank top with numerous small holes and tears.
His gnarled and twisted hands clung to the top of the metal walking frame, knobbed and twisted as the protuberant joints seemed to be visibly growing like a complex of inconvenient ginger root. He struggled on, fuelled by anger and resentment, his wispy, overgrown, thin grey hair blowing randomly in the breeze.
“You really think you’re going to catch a cat, you Muppet? Save it, or you’ll have a heart attack,” announced Ed, omitting a strange array of cat noises in the direction of the man as he grappled with the frame, lifting it one side then the other, trying to get to the cat. His vile rage showed in his frothing, bulging, red face and was evidence of a lifetime’s frustration. The long grey tufts on either side of his mainly bald head flicked impotently from side to side as he shuffled further.
“You fool, what d’you think you’re doing?” meowed Ed, as he calmly skipped onto a small wall and then up onto a cheaply constructed and tatty wooden garden shed. He looked down from the roof, at the door hanging on one hinge from a badly rotting door frame. The man came to rest just in front and grabbed his walking stick from the side of the silvery metal frame, lifting it skywards, shaking it in Ed’s direction, banging on the bottom part of the gable roof.
“You bastard, you bastard,” he shouted as he smacked away at the roof with the stick, causing bits of the unkempt structure to fly off into the garden.
“Chrissake man, were you on the losing side in a war or something? You’re causing more damage than I ever could have in the bush,” screeched Ed, as he backed off to the rear of the roof and up onto a tall thin wooden fence. It was hardly wide enough, but his fine-tuned balancing skills made walking along the slender and narrow wooden structure mere child’s play. He skipped along, leaving the spouting buffoon behind, exhaling his rage like an impotent volcano.
The fence ran along the back of a number of gardens and was going to be a very useful through-route for getting around the area. He stopped for a moment and looked back to get his bearings and a visual landmark so he could easily return to the house.
They have food and a comfortable warm place to sleep so I’d be a fool not to go back and stay a few days. Besides, maybe I could try and browse the internet on the kid’s laptop when they’re out. That’s not going to be easy with
these fat paws though
, thought Ed, noticing a rusting red swing in the garden where he had had the altercation with the old man. Next to it, the bush had indeed been left in disarray with wooden supports and bits of thin wire mesh left in a bundle on the lawn. The old man just stared motionless at the damage.
I don’t recall making that much of an impact on it. Oh well, onward and
upward
, thought Ed.
With this, he resumed his journey along the fence, down into a small alley and along into a small park and pond, marvelling at his newfound agility. It was as though every time he jumped or landed he was Zebedee or some other spring-based jumping novelty toy. Excitedly, he pounced up onto walls, sheds and fences and back down again onto the tarmac walkway, his paws splaying out whilst his legs took all the pressure of each jump with a satisfying springiness. His whole body felt so flexible, like a big slab of very soft, flexible rubber.
He ambled out into the main road, keeping on the pavement and slinking along close to the sides of the parked cars, ducking in and out from under them between the wheels. He powered himself skywards again with his strong back legs and jumped up onto the roof of a blue Honda Jazz car, walking along its roof, down onto the bonnet and then down onto the floor to continue on his way. He came to rest on the small front wall next to a finely pruned and arranged rose bush. The smell was almost overpowering for the cat, leaving him intrigued by the depth of its odour. Finally it got too much to bear and he jumped down and back along the way he’d come. The intensity of all the smells around him was altogether overwhelming. Even the car tyres gave out an incredibly strong rubber smell as he strolled along the street. Worst above all, were the piles of dog poo at every possible tree location along the way, sometimes even just dropped off in the middle of the pavement.
What must owners be thinking, letting them do that? If they could smell what I could smell they would certainly rethink the strategy of their dog’s toilet
habits
, thought Ed, as he slinked past yet another mess, careful to keep his pristine furry paws away from any of it. Soon he was on his way back to his new home and back along the fence past the old man’s house.
He skipped down from the fence onto the brick and breeze block enclosure that formed a barbeque area at the end of his new garden and proceeded home.
Back into my Smunky shack,
he thought, as he trotted along the small alley and flicked his way through the cat flap, leading with his head. Frank was in the kitchen making tea and toast for himself and his son. Ed snuck through the open kitchen door and slid into the living room. Ali was still at the computer, his right hand flicking through options with the mouse whilst the left hand held his mobile phone to his ear.
“What do you mean leave it on 24/7? Isn’t that dangerous? Dad will go bananas about the electricity bill.”
Meanwhile Ed had spotted another cat basket in the corner of the living room, smaller than the one in the kitchen but equally comfortably lined with a warm, thick furry blanket. He slinked over and skipped in, avoiding the saucer of milk alongside.
Great, looks like I’m going to be spoiled for a few days,
he thought, as he lay down in the basket on his side, his legs straight out flat on the blanket. His head perched proudly upwards as he craned to see what Ali was up to.
“Well, it’s okay now. It’s all working fine, I think. Let me put you on speaker phone so I can use both hands.”
Ali propped the phone up against the screen of the laptop and pressed the small icon on the screen for the speaker.
“Can you hear me?” shouted Ali.
“Yes, I can, you don’t need to shout,” replied the thin, tinny micro voice at the other end of the line.
“Great. What was it you said, Control, Alt what?” queried Ali.
“Control, Alt, Delete, hold down the first two at the same time and press delete.”
“Won’t that delete something?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, you really are a beginner. No, it won’t delete anything, just do it,” replied his friend with more than a degree of irritation.
“Ehm? Which one is ‘control’?”
“My god, are you kidding me? It says C-T-R-L on it. How thick can you be?”
“All right, all right! Keep yer hair on. This is the first time it’s gone wrong. I knew we shouldn’t have got a laptop. See, I told you Dad, we should have got a proper desktop computer,” announced Ali as he turned round to his dad who had just entered the room with tea and toast.
“How the hell would I know? You decided, not me. If it was a kettle or toaster then I might have had an opinion. A bloody computer though, I don’t know why you waste your time with that muck. Anyway, here’s your tea and toast; come over to the table and eat it now,” replied Frank as he deposited the two plates and cups on a small table by the window, carelessly slopping the tea over the edges of the cups.
“Carter, I’m going to have to go, sorry.”
“Don’t worry, I can come over tomorrow night and fix it up. Leave it on until then,” replied his helpful friend.
“Did you hear that, Dad? We have to leave it on overnight. Then Carter’ll come and fix it tomorrow.”
“Okay, anything, if you just come over and eat your bloody toast. Get a cloth from the kitchen as well to mop this up,” exclaimed Frank, less than bothered about the situation.
“Listen, I’ll see you later, Carter. Thanks, man,” exclaimed Ali as he hung up before heading to the kitchen for a cloth and back over to the table.
“Thanks, Dad. He’ll sort it all out. He’s brilliant with all this stuff. He knows more than the teacher about computers in our computer class. I should get a bit more knowledgeable about it myself really. I feel so helpless when something goes wrong,” exclaimed Ali, as he tucked into his thickly sliced toast, covered in much too much butter.
“Whatever! Eat that and then we should leave to go to the match or we’ll be late. A win tonight and we go five points clear at the top of the table,” declared Frank, for the first time displaying a degree of enthusiasm in his voice.
“Hey,
Basingstoke
Town
rule the world, ‘Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum’. Come on you Dragons,” exclaimed Ali excitedly before opening a drawer under the table, pulling out a blue and yellow scarf and tying it around his neck.
“What does that mean anyway, Dad? Why does everyone sing that?” queried the boy.
“Christ knows. Italian I think. Must be something to do with that bloody operatic twaddle they used as a theme tune for the World Cup. What a load of crap.”
With that, Frank pulled down a strikingly unattractive, Basingstoke FC bobble hat and forced it over his slightly fat head, down to, but not over the ears.
“We really need to leave it on do we, Ali? Are you sure it’s okay?” queried Frank, gesticulating towards the computer.
“It’ll be fine, Dad, and it takes hardly any juice. Let’s go to the match or we’ll be late. I’ll pop these into the kitchen,” proclaimed Ali confidently as he scooped up the cups and plates and made tracks towards the kitchen.
As if the hat and scarf were not enough, they soon both had garish bright and lurid yellow and blue jackets and were heading out of the front door.
“See you later, Smunky. Take it easy, furry fellow,” shouted the boy back into the living room before slamming the front door shut. He tinkered with numerous locks before heading down the garden path and out onto the pavement. Ed jumped up from his basket and onto the window ledge to see them both heading sluggishly along the road and away from the house.
Chapter 9
Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum
Right. This is my opportunity. Let’s see if I can do anything on the computer
with these ridiculous paws
, thought Ed, as he jumped down onto the frayed and tatty carpet, up onto the computer chair, and onto the desktop. Ed had never been much of a football fan, but knew that if they were at a match then he would have a two or three hour window to explore online and gather some deeper
He stared at the glittering ocean screensaver splashing over the laptop screen, keen to entertain whoever would be bored enough to stare at it. He looked closer and could see it was certainly not state of the art, without a brand name or any logos anywhere on the black and silver plastic body.
Right, I need to twist it round sideways so I can get better access to the
keyboard
, thought Ed, as he jerked cautiously at the front left edge of the machine, gently turning it sideways, careful that none of the cables became detached.
If I yank any of these cables out I’ll never get them back in again
, considered the cat whilst realising how lucky it was that the device had a touch pad controller rather than a mouse.
Thank God for that. Besides the fact that I wouldn’t be able to control it with these paws, I might eat it.
With this, he turned the machine a good ninety degrees, realising how difficult it was going to be to do anything meaningful with it. Sitting in front of the machine with his body erect he stroked across the touch pad, disengaging the screen saver and switching the view over to the desktop and a commonly generic Microsoft image of flowing sandy dunes and an impressive blue sky. From the icons at the bottom of the screen he could see that it was still connected to the internet. The obstacles were falling one by one.
“So far so good. Let’s try and open up a document and see if I can type anything meaningful.”
Ed extended out his claws as far as they would go and with the far left claw of his right paw dragged down and across the touchpad, moving the cursor erratically all over the desktop. His left paw meanwhile rested on the left corner of the laptop casing keeping it steady. Up, down, across, left and right, back and forth, in and out and round and round. He slowly mastered the cursor movement and got fairly comfortable moving it around the screen.
Next he tried clicking a few things. He dragged the cursor over a program icon and moved his paw down to the click buttons to try and open it. It hurt his claw as he unsuccessfully clicked but he persevered and after a few attempts managed to master the technique. He then scrolled up to the ‘close program’ icon in the upper right corner of the screen and closed it, then opened it and closed it again. Time after time he opened and closed programs before switching his attentions to his typing skills, opening Microsoft word and trying to type.
‘8ii anm a cat whyy m iu sa caat… I don@t lknow why I anm as xcat aanb I wwamt too so;lvee thwe riddfle on the ointewernet ifg ii vcan’
“This is hopeless. How will I ever be able to type a URL or navigate anywhere like this?”
Distraught, Ed pulled away from the computer and stared disconsolately at the screen, bewildered and disillusioned. After a few minutes the waves of the screen saver began splashing their optimistic wateriness in his face once more.
“Fuck it! I’ve already wasted something like an hour. I can do this. Pull yourself together, sort this shit out right now.”
Ed gave himself a stern inspirational poke and got back into position at the keyboard.
“I can do this. I will do this. I am doing this and soon I will have done this. It might be the only opportunity I ever get.”
With this he launched back into the word document, tapping, tickling, poking and prodding the keys until he mastered some semblance of control.
‘I amm a Cat. My nsme is Ed, not friking Smunky. Whst is a Smmnky anyway? I am niot daftt or stuupid sndwould like to sit omn th sofa 3very now aand theen. I like th foopd you give me but I wa,mt more pleawse. Abnother thimg, you hsve comput3r problems b3cause you don’’tt hsve a proper anti virus instslled. If I hav3 time tomight, I will do thst for you. Llove. Ed’
Save as; ‘A massage frim your cat.doc’
Location; Desktop
“That will be funny when he finds it,” smirked Ed as he clicked on the Mozilla Firefox browser icon and opened up an internet browser.
“Where shall I start? I don’t even know the date I died.”
Ed sat, confused about how to begin his search. He figured he had at least ninety minutes until Ali and Frank came home and he didn’t want to waste time. Firefox had opened up on the Google search page and so he began typing in random search requests.
Motor accident on M3.
Car crash and death on A303 / M3.
Car accidents near
Basingstoke
.
Nothing significant came up at all, at least not anything that seemed linked to him in any way whatsoever. Was his death that insignificant that it had not received any attention whatsoever in the media? Was he such a nobody that he just disappeared with a whimper rather than a bang? He felt disillusioned once more.
“What am I hoping to achieve? Even if I do find any meaningful facts, what use will it be? I’m dead and in a perpetual cycle of being reincarnated into different animals. What’s the point?” Ed slumped down again feeling sorry for himself.
“Christ all mighty! Give me some help here, dude. If you are bloody well there, which I now seriously doubt, give me a clue.” He started to feel angry at the situation, the adrenalin pumping into his little feline veins and reigniting him once more as he stared up for divine intervention.
“Just one more go, one more go. Why don’t I look at some of my company’s online sites? I’ll start with Cubiz.”
Soon he was tapping away at the keyboard once more, typing into the address bar: www dot CubiZ dot Com. Lo and behold, the site sprang up and in the bottom right hand corner of the screen was a picture of him and a big fluorescent glowing announcement in a box.
Sad news. Ed Trew, creator and owner of CubiZ Ltd has been taken from us in a tragically fatal car accident. Click here for details.
He sat overwhelmed, miserable, confused and shattered. He thought he would read some headlines in his time but one regarding his own death was really pushing the boat out. Looking at his picture and seeing the announcement, it penetrated to his inner core with a painful permanence and forlorn solitary loneliness. For the first time in his existence, he was in mourning about his own death whilst asking himself a very important question: Do I exist?
I used to feel my existence was so permanent, or at least long lasting. Now I feel anything but. Does that mean I don’t exist or is each new transience a new existence? Maybe my consciousness constitutes existence but even that is not exactly long lasting because it changes slightly with my tastes, desires
and habits of each animal. What a conundrum
, thought Ed, as he clicked on the link to the story about his passing.
Ed Trew 1970 – 2009
Ed Trew, the designer and owner of CubiZ was sadly killed in a road accident on
nd
2009
. He was thirty-nine years of age and was the pioneer in the design of all CubiZ solar power units and the ‘RuZZia snow cleaner’ which has done so well in Eastern Europe, Siberia and the Far East. He was posthumously awarded the ICBDF Designer of the Decade award for his stunning solar power inventions which will be such a vital ingredient of a greener lifestyle for the world.
The cause of the crash is unknown but mobile phone records have shown a busy period of texts and calls just before the tragedy. He was alone in his silver Volvo estate at the time of the accident, and the only casualty. It was reported that a car near the scene had a tyre blow-out at around the same time on the same stretch of road and could have been the cause. The driver reported seeing Ed’s car swerve into the central reservation before veering across the three lanes and into a ditch beside the carriageway where it appears to have overturned, probably twice. No other cars were involved in the accident on the M3 northbound half a mile or so from the junction with the A303 near Dummer.
Ed leaves a wife, Abella, but no children. His legacy will live on as his company CubiZ continues to grow from strength to strength. Abella Trew has taken over the chairman’s role of the company and has appointed a strong team of experts from the field to work with her to take the company to the next level. Since Ed’s death, numerous lucrative orders have come in from
Siberia
for the RuZZia cleaner and five local councils in the
UK
have committed to supply at least fifty percent of their street lighting with the CubiZ solar system. Consequently the company has expanded and is currently developing three large factory areas in the
Midlands
and expects to employ a work force of around 4,250 in the new facilities within twelve months.
Mr Trew is sadly missed by all his colleagues, friends and relatives but his legacy lives on and CubiZ Ltd continues to push towards being the world’s leading solar power developer.
Ed stared emotionally at the screen. Everything he had dreamed of for the company was coming true but he was not going to witness it.
“Christ, all that success and I am becoming aware of it as a bloody cat living with two
Basingstoke
Town
fans. How bad can it get?”
With this, Ed realised he could look at the date on the computer and work out how long he had been away. He dragged his paw across the touchpad and manoeuvred the cursor down and over the bottom right hand corner of the screen. It displayed the time, 21.03. As he moved the cursor over this section it displayed the date:
Sam was right - looks like I’ve been dead for over two years. Whatever happened to me during that time? Was I just floating in nothingness? How bizarre. At least I know the truth now and can be sure it’s not a dream. I don’t know how useful it’ll all be, or even if this Viking guy can help, but at least I
know. That’s got to be something
, reflected the cat, catching his reflection in the glass of a small framed photo above the computer. It was Ali and Frank sitting beside a sun-drenched grey / green swimming pool, both clutching enormous ice creams. They looked so happy in that moment, as if their destiny was condensed there and then. An indelible moment of joy, love and companionship that must certainly be etched on both their memories.
It made Ed miss Abella even more and dragged his mood into a sudden forlorn misery. He sat motionless for a while before picking himself up to reflect on the positives. He felt reassured that Abella had become so committed to the company and seemed to be taking it all forward. He was glad she had found the energy and motivation to continue, but deep down he still couldn’t help feeling bereft that she was living her life without him. It felt like they’d lived for each other and that anything else was out of the question.
The thoughts rushed through his head like fireworks in an empty gas tank. He wondered what to do. Could he contact her? How he would love to log onto his email and send her an email. How would she ever believe him though? He reflected on what he would say;
***
-----Original Message-----
From:
Ed Trew [mailto:edtrew @ CubiZ dot biz]
Sent:
To:
ABELLA TREW
Subject:
Re: I am a cat and was previously a tortoise