Fast forward

I am never one to complain, but ...I am really not a big fan of daylight savings! I always end up feeling as though I either get too much sleep or not enough! And not to mention the hunger pains between meal times because my body has to adjust to waiting an extra hour!

Priscilla my Burmese "soul animal" is not happy with her meal times being changed either! I mean she is royalty after all! She has a particular routine she likes to follow and if by chance it gets interrupted, hell hath no claws like a Burmese cat not pampered to her liking!

Who decided we needed to mess with time anyway! I bet it was the "fat cats" (sorry Priscilla!) who wanted to add to their already enormous bank accounts by making us lowly workers start work earlier and stay back longer!

I mean they have some cheek is all!

Well I must do what is expected of me if i am to keep Priscilla in the lifestyle she is accustomed too!

"Goodnight cruel world! I shall see you in the morning, sigh!”

I expected to toss and turn all night with all of the thoughts racing around in my head! Somehow I managed to sleep reasonably well. So well in fact that i didn't even hear the alarm which was set at 6:05 am!

"That's strange... (I said to no-one in particular, as I lived alone with the exception of Priscilla of course) where is my loves from my gorgeous Cilla-poo?"

Like i said, Priscilla had a routine. And part of that was to wake me up with nose kisses every morning just before my alarm clock went off. How odd that she was nowhere to be seen?

Looking at the actual time, now being 2:22pm..I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach at the realisation I was going to be very very late for work! My boss was not the kind to give you a second chance even with a legitimate excuse!

"Cilla-poo! Where are you my delicious feline fur ball?"

Still no answer! And Priscilla always replied with a rather snobbish sounding "bre-oww!"

I headed towards the kitchen, in the hopes that my Cilla-poo was sitting on her cat throne waiting for her man servant to tend to her every whim. Her throne was empty, as was her kitty castle and her playroom! Oh where oh where could my Cilla-poo be?

With a heavy heart, I headed into my home office to call in to work. Perhaps i could use the excuse that my beloved fur baby had gone missing. Lorna on reception was a cat lover too , as well as my bosses wife so she might sympathise with me enough to convince her husband , my boss, that this was a real life emergency that shouldn't warrant me losing my job!

Pressing number 3 on my speed dial, Ie expected to be greeted by Lorna's melodic tone, instead I got "beep...beep...beep!" which usually means the number is no longer operating or in use.

I unplugged my phone (yes I had a landline, it’s very vintage sheik don't you know!) plugged it back in, and tried once more to call work. Once again i was subjected to the annoying "beeping" sound. This was not helping my already skyrocketing blood pressure!

I hunted through my kitchen drawers looking for my emergency mobile phone. I will call Lorna directly on her personal phone.

"Ouch!"

Silly me had placed my mobile in the sharp knives draw without thinking! Now i had blood oozing out all over my nice clean floor!

"Thud!" (Me dropping to the ground at the sight of blood!)

Several minutes later, I managed to scrape myself off the floor and into my ensuite bathroom. Rummaging around the medicine cabinet for aspirin and a band aid, I almost fainted yet again! My bathroom was absolutely, disgustingly filthy! Like it had not been cleaned for years!

Something was not right! I suffered from OCD so I was what you would call a bit of a "clean freak". Surveying the grime and dust covered surfaces, I suddenly felt the urge to run outside. I needed to breathe in some fresh air and clear my head.

I tumbled out onto my neatly manicured lawn. Wait a minute! The usually well-kept patch of green was now all straggly and long with a lot of dry dusty dirt patches all over! Oh my Lord! How long was I asleep for?

Perhaps my lovely neighbour, she who goes by the name "Her Cher-ness" could make sense of all of this! Her Cher-ness being a drag queen with so much sparkle and pizazz that the "real" Cher would turn green with envy!

Approaching my neighbour’s mini-mansion, I felt as though a cold hand had touched my very soul! Turning around I expected to see someone standing right behind me. You know, like one of those rather dark and scary characters right out of a Halloween movie! I guess my paranoia had gotten the better of me. There was nobody behind me.

Pressing the diamante encrusted door bell, I listened out for the familiar sound of Her Cher-ness singing "If I could turn back time “Which was a rather "punny" poke at daylight savings which Her Cher-ness loathed as well.

Instead I heard a "Zupppp! Zzzziii!" noise, like wiring shorting out. This day was just getting stranger and stranger by the minute!

I decided to look for the spare key that Her Cher-ness left out for me for when I needed to bring Priscilla over for a play date with Chi-Chi, another fabulous Burmese feline. It was still in its usual hidey hole, underneath the rather spectacular statuette made in the likeness of Her Cher-ness. The weird thing was, that it looked like it had been left in its place for over a hundred years! Ok, so maybe 5 years give or take.

The key had tarnished to a teal green, with rusted spots dotted all over. I suddenly felt very afraid. Turning the key in the lock i stepped inside a little apprehensively. I almost fell back with the foul stench of mould and dust invading my nostrils into my lungs!

"Hello, Her-Cherness? Are you home my gorgeous friend?"

I was greeted by an eerie silence that sent shivers coursing through my body. I didn't dare proceed any further. This house had the appearance of being abandoned a long time ago. Nothing and no-one could survive living in such a hotbed of stale and musty air.

I had almost given up all hope of finding answers to this very bizarre day that had been unfolding, when I heard a familiar "bre-oww!" only much louder than I could recall my Cilla-poo calling. Racing towards her heavenly voice, I was soon stopped in my tracks when I found myself face to face with what looked like a robotic version of my beloved kitty!

In that instant, it was as though a switch had been flicked. Making me see clearly what i had somehow managed to be blinded too, from the very first moment i had awoken. I looked down at my arm, at the intravenous tube dangling out from my veins. It all started to make sense as my memories started flooding back in waves.

I had been in a self-induced coma after the loss of my beloved Cilla-poo! Killed by the drunken lout in number 45! He said it was an accident, but I knew he was lying. He had always hated my beautiful Priscilla, after she put his mangy mongrel "Nutty mutt" in his place!

So grief stricken was I, that I went in search of the renowned scientist (rather mad genius I might add), to try to bring back my precious Cilla-poo from the dead so to speak. I knew he couldn't actually bring "her" back. But he could make a version of her that would be close enough to the Cilla-poo I so adored.

So after handing over a boot load of cash, (it really was a boot load) the mad doctor set to work to create a likeness of Priscilla that would hopefully mend my broken heart.

Of course it didn't turn out just how I had expected. The robotic version felt cold and too perfect. Of course she had been programmed with all of the information and video clips of her time with me when she was alive. She was amazingly life-like but didn’t have the personality or the heart my Cilla-Poo had. Thus my decision to go into a coma.

I had also made arrangements for Priscilla’s body to be frozen in a cryogenic state until such time that there is a way to bring her back to life. I could have made the same arrangements for myself at the right price. But I chose to do it my way so that I could have some control over my own body.

My nurse would come in once a day to make sure I was comfortable and that my vitals were all good. She would also change my catheter bag and tend to my intravenous drip. I also gave her the task of keeping my physical body clean. So everything was just how I had planned until now.

Pressing the off switch on my other Priscilla, I gently placed her in her crate. Wiping away the tears that streamed down my face, I pushed the emergency distress button that had been set up for my nurse if anything like this ever happened. She lived only ten minutes away from me so I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes for just a second when….

“Beep-beep! Beep!” followed by a familiar smell of fancy feast tuna breath and a cold moist nose on mine.

“Oh thank God your alive my beautiful Cilla-Poo!

The joy that filled my heart showed in the wide grin that spread across my once stressed face. Knowing that it had all just been a terrible dream. Of course there was still the question of why Priscilla was late with her kisses….