My Kingdom!

"You're late, again, Jimmy!" my cruel master, Antonio, yells out in panic as I sense him perturbed by his impatient busy guests. While Antonio runs in circles in turmoil with himself, I find myself entangled in the caustic dance between consciousness and the persistent yearning for the illusive solace of sleep. You see, there is no greater joy than replacing the mundane I'm scared to admit might be called reality with an experience capable of boundless impossibilities that draw to me. What I have learned, however, in this hell scape that I am imprisoned, it is someone's cruel joke that I must pay keen attention and admiration for this hell to be granted my joyous slumber I am entitled to. For this reason, I tare myself apart in debating with myself why I leave my comfortable chambers and take on a new day. If I had the power, I would destroy whomever made that sick and twisted rule.

Communing with the dawn has always birthed a peculiar sense of dread in me. I'd often cast my gaze towards the taunting paradox: the dawn was purportedly luminous, yet it remained shrouded in a façade of gloom. Emerging from my sanctuary was an ordeal: to bare the merciless herald of the gate's ringings, echos of stories I've all heard before, and the never-ending clangs of glass in my confines or to bare all of that plus the visions of all the regulars whom I try to avoid. Why I do it, I cannot answer honestly to myself. Such was the bleak routine of my drab existence, each day an arduous battle fought with the spectre of morning. I finally lie to myself it's worth getting up because today will be different.

Next trod the affair of grooming, a necessary ritual that I begrudgingly submitted to. Each bristle a testament to a veiled battle, a silent war waged with the unyielding onslaught of time. An intimate exploration of self whilst seeking out knots and grime. The grooming process unveiled the complexity of my very being. This grand manoeuvre was accompanied by a deep sigh, the toll exhaled from the depths of my weary soul.

'What's for breakfast?', I wonder to thyself. A spicy delicacy, perhaps, I smell from thine shelf. To my surpri, my senses do not lie, as I now see it before my own eye, canned chicken I cannot deny! I have jotted this poem down so I can read it later and then puke up this manufactured plastic on my master's bed at my own whim as protest. My master is far too stupid to understand it comes from a place of injustice and discontent more than of biological rejection, but all I can do is hope and try.

The final conquest awaited: the venture towards the crude parody of my meagre sustenance. For though I detest it all, without it I am nothing: the mess hall. Coaxing my weary form to the portal of the day was a feat unlike any other, lined with pitfalls and trials that seemed designed to test my resolve. The scent of roasted coffee beans wafted through the air, a bitter-sweet symphony that hung in the air like a poison, trying to seduce me back to the world of the living. The faint echoes of the world returned to my senses; the promise of another day, the image of wonders, looming overhead like an ominous cloud.

Perching myself elegantly on the empty chair, I open my eyes onto a page of history that reverts back to simpler times when man and nature coexisted together in harmony: A Cat. A Cat! My Kingdom for a Cat! An Ancient Egypt Anthology. It told tales of love cats had for humans whom they, by their grace, fed. It told sagas of cat led adventures. Most importantly, it told of epics of the Gods Mafdet, Bastet, and Sehkmet with the worlds in which they ruled, whom, of course, were cats man bowed down to. Mafdet's powers provided physical protection, Bastet able to cure men from disease and evil spirits, and Sehkmet an untameable beast able to divert plague. Oh, the naivety we had about human kind. Where did it all go wrong and why did we trust them? They can't even live happily with themselves in command. A disservice we made onto the world only we can blame ourselves for.

Here, however, I look out into my world beyond the glass window which remained an enigma. My eyes, weary from exposure to the cruel light, rejected any attempt to breach the darkness that dominated my secluded sanctum. Aches and pains, old foes that never missed their morning visit, jeered me as I sat silently, surveying the world that lay beyond my solitude. Sometimes I can't help but glare horrendously out toward the busy streets before I'm able to regather my wits and continue my readings.

It is now time for my monthly disturbance while I try to achieve the impossible out of outer defiance. As I inclined towards my coffee, it took itself from my own grasp yet again, pooling pitifully on the wooden floor before me. It was then revealed, my frustrated yearning to clutch the elusive source of bitter solace in my claws whilst admit to myself it obeys the paw of a human's, for I was a grumpy cat facing a world built against my existence; condemned I am to read novels from experiences made from everyone but myself and peer woefully through windows from where I could only dream.

The morning light, that erstwhile enemy of mine, unveiled my true semblance. There, reflected in the droplets of spilled coffee, in the puddles of unshed tears and unspoken secrets, was I. The malaise of existence was no less potent for a creature of my pedigree. Amid the mediocrity plaguing this plane of existence, I too languished, a grumpy cat encased in the endless monotony until granted the bitter sweet freedom to explore either the dream or death realm. That is, anything to escape this damnation woven as a local café I desire so much.