Pussycat For King!

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“The shining ones have come a calling,” Pussycat said dreamily. “There are three of them, and they're tiny – they're like fireflies in vaguely human form, and they burn so brightly it hurts my eyes to gaze upon them. Are you awake, Owl? You have to see this.”

“Get up, we're wasting precious time!” the trio of shining beings fluttering in a tight cluster above Pussycat's head said in unison.

“You're exquisite, you're lovely, you're absolutely divine,” Pussycat mumbled. “Your voices are like the melodious whisper of distant harps, they're like wind chimes hanging over a babbling brook, they're like a lost fairy symphony composed at the dawn of time. Your lithe little bodies are too bright for a mere mortal like me to pick out any details, but oh how your improbable beauty enthrals me! You ripple with all the colours of the rainbow, and your diaphanous wings shimmer like a river of molten gold peppered with precious stones. Oh dear, I think I'm going to cry.....”

“Stop waxing lyrical, you contemptible knob, and wake Owl right now!” one of the creatures said.

Owl rolled onto her back and emitted a chorus of gentle snores. “Maybe I'm asleep as well,” Pussycat said, “because this is too ridiculous to be real. I know, I'll pinch myself really hard, close my eyes and count to ten – that should drag me out of this outlandish suburb of dreamland. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. No, they're still there. You have to wake up right now, Owl, I need you.”

Pussycat tickled his wife under her wing-pit, and with the benefit of the glow cast by the visitors he registered an involuntary smile playing on her lips as she twitched and tried to turn over, so he tickled her in the ribs where he knew she couldn't bear it. “I love it when you smile, Susan,” he said. “It never fails to turn my heart to jelly, but you really have to wake up, I need you to witness this wonder and reassure me that I'm not going doolally.”

“Whaddyawant?” Owl grumbled without opening her eyes. “I was having a lovely dream about a young Roger Moore, and you've deliberately ruined it, you jealous old tool. Roger was giving me a really good rogering and his face was frozen in that ridiculous grin that men set aside for when they're approaching the vinegar strokes, and only his eyebrows were moving. Good golly, Eugene, 'twas sheer bliss!”

“Stop mooning about Roger bloody Moore, madam,” Pussycsat said. “We have visitors.”

“Not again. Who is it this time?”

“It's three outstandingly beautiful glowing beings with wings and musical voices, and they're only a couple of inches tall - open your eyes and you'll see them.”

“Oh, yes, aren't they pretty!”

“'Ooh, aren't they pretty!' Never mind that, woman, what do the little buggers want?”

“We are beings of fire from a parallel dimension, and we come on behalf of the people of Ungawungaland,” one of the creatures said. “This is Gladys and Irene, and my name is Doris. We were led to your abode here in Dullsville by a Miss Dingbat, do you remember her, Mr. Pussycat?”

“Yes, I remember her, Flannelette Dingbat, the sweet old lady from Dog town, the woman who bought a biodiesel engine for a beautiful pea green boat and a rather expensive drum kit from me because she had a session with Motorhead lined up. She gave me a lift home in her beautiful flying pea green boat, remember, Owl?”

“Yes, of course.”

“As well as being a talented musician Miss Dingbat is an amateur genealogist,” Doris said. “She's figured out that you, Pussycat, are next in line for the throne of Ungawungaland. You can discard the notion of her as a sweet old lady, by the way, she was dissolving fluffy bunnies in hydrochloric acid and electrocuting shrews in a modified toaster when we dropped by. As well as being a not so sweet old lady and a talented musician she's a - well, Dingbat by name, dingbat by nature, I'm afraid she's a complete psychopath.”

“I see,” Pussycat said. “No, I don't see actually, because I've forgotten what a psychopath is. Is it one of those long green tarmac things along the side of the road where you ride a bicycle in supposed safety? Is it someone who's frightened of pomegranates? No, it has to be someone with a pathological hatred of shrews and fluffy bunnies. I remember learning about psychopaths at school now, they're folk who make decorative ironing board covers out of sycamore leaves, nettle fibres and dead moths. No, I don't think they are..... You'll have to excuse my befuddlement, Doris, my mummy dropped me on my head when I was a kitten and-”

“And as a result you suffer from occasional memory lapses, we know. Some psychopaths may well make ironing board covers out of nettle fibres, sycamore leaves and dead moths, but it's not their raison_d’être. A psychopath is someone who's completely gaga, someone who's incapable of understanding the emotions of others, and they often commit violent, despicable acts without the slightest remorse.”

“Oh dear.....”

“But that's beside the point. You don't mind us sitting on your duvet and resting our wings for a while, do you? Don't worry, we won't set the house on fire. Have you ever heard of Ungawungaland?” Owl and Pussycat shook their heads. “Ungawungaland is a large, wealthy kingdom far, far away. There's been a major epidemic there, thousands have died and even the king has popped his clogs, and you, Mr. Pussycat, are the next in line to the throne. The people of Ungawungaland are – oh, never mind, I'll tell you later.”

“That's ridiculous,” Owl said. “Eugene is a commoner, he's just a daft old pussycat.”

“She's right, Doris,” Pussycat sighed, “there must be some sort of mistake. I don't carry any royal blood, I'm just a silly old pussycat, but I must say the idea of being a king is rather exciting.”

“There's no doubt of your sovereignty,” Doris said. “Your great, great grandfather Oswald Artichoke Pussycat was exiled from Ungawungaland many years ago because he was suspected of plotting to kill his older brother, a claim that was later proved to be false, and you are the only living descendant of the royal line – the rest of the royal family have all succumbed to cat pox.”

“Cat pox?” Eugene and Susan said at the same time. “What's cat pox?”

“Don't worry about that,” Doris said, pulling a glowing hypodermic and a flask of viscous dark green fluid from her utility belt. “Us fiery beings are the best veterinarians in the universe, and we've bought along the most effective cat pox inoculation ever made. As well as levelling cats in record time cat pox knocks birds off their perches pretty swiftly too, Owl, so botties out, the pair you. Feel free to bite on your pillows, because this will bloody well hurt.....”

************************

“How are we going to ouch! - get to whatyacallit, the place where I'm to be ooh! - king?” Pussycat said, pulling up his trousers and rubbing his throbbing bottom.

“We have a technologically advanced wormhole key,” Doris replied. “It's so advanced, in fact, that it exists only in our minds. Don't ask for an explanation, please, I'm a mere messenger and the physics is way beyond me.”

“I won't fit down a wormhole, I'm too fat,” Pussycat chuckled.

“Everyone and everything fits down wormholes,” Doris said, taking wing and flying around Pussycat's expansive waistline for the sheer hell of it. “Nevertheless, I might make you a belt with the word 'equator' embroidered on it in fancy copperplate letters. You two need to have some breakfast, we have a long way to travel.”

“Hang about,” Owl said. “The kids are in bed, we can't leave them here alone.”

“No problemmo,” Doris smiled. “Gladys and Irene will stay here and get the children up for school in the morning.”

“No offence, but I don't think the kids will be too happy about being woken by a couple of strange fiery beings,” Owl said.

“You worry too much, Owl,” Doris said. “Gladys, kindly show Owl the form you'll take while you look after her beloved offspring.” Gladys did a Wonder Woman twirl and turned into an exact replica of Owl.

“Oh, cor blimey!” Owl said.

“Cor blimey to you, too,” the counterfeit Owl replied in Owl's voice.

“You're more like Owl than Owl is,” Pussycat said. “You're so much like Owl that Owl would come second in an international Owl lookalike competition. You're so much like Owl that I might be tempted to slip you one when the real Owl's not looking.”

“Shut up Eugene, you complete moron,” the counterfeit Owl said.

“Don't call him a moron, he's a very nice Pussycat indeed!” snapped the counterfeit Pussycat that Irene had turned into.

“This is splendid,” Pussycat said, rubbing his hands together in glee. “Can I keep the counterfeit Pussycat and send it out selling thingamies and whatyacallits every day while I stay here, put my feet up and secretly watch porn on the internet?”

“And can I keep the counterfeit Owl and get her to do all the housework while I smoke psychotropic fungus and write surreal romantic novels?” Owl said.

“No, you bloody well can't,” Doris replied.

*************************

“Why is our living room warping and bubbling in a most peculiar way?” Pussycat gurgled as he washed down the last mouthful of his bacon and egg sandwich with gulps of criminally strong coffee.

“Why are my lovely new cushion covers dissolving in a bright, appallingly noisy multicoloured swirl?” Owl screeched, wiping her beak on a napkin.

“Sorry to alarm you, m'dears, I should have explained that we're entering the wormhole,” Doris said. “You might find it a bit strange at first, but you'll soon get used to it.” Owl and Pussycat's familiar surroundings were sucked into a swiftly revolving spiral of light and colour, and they somersaulted helplessly in the current of an incredibly powerful vortex.

“Wheeeee!” Owl squealed. “This is fantastic!”

“I'm frightened!” Pussycat said, “and I can't reach you, my beloved Owl for a bit of much needed solace. I don't like this place, it's too freaky and it smells of, oh, I don't know, fried onions and hair oil and parsnips. And what's that damned awful racket – it sounds like the squeals of several hundred hogs being fried alive.” A potted plant covered with grinning Bruce Forsyth faced blossoms shouting 'Nice to see you, to see you nice,' tumbled past Pussycat at tremendous speed, and he almost crashed into a huge orange and black snake wrapped tightly around a clockwork monkey bashing together a pair of cymbals. “What are all these surreal looking monstrosities doing here?” Pussycat said, tearing away a bulbous pink spider that landed on his shoulder and hummed the Magic Roundabout theme in his ear.

“Oh, you're such a pussy, Pussycat,” Doris chortled. “They're just travellers like you and I, they don't mean you any harm. Try to ignore the noise, that's just the raucous music of the wormhole.”

“If that's music I'm a monkey's aunt, but otherwise I don't mind a bit,” Owl said, waving to a fat lady scorpion singing a mournful dirge in an incomprehensible staccato tongue accompanied by a shoal of luminous banjo playing sardines randomly sewn into her gown. “Look at that porcelain cow, Eugene, she's wearing a tam o' shanter and carrying a little green piggy smoking a pipe. Look at that transgender camel playing Moon River on a xylophone made out of squeaking mice nailed to a plank, and whatever you do don't miss that huge electric blue octopus flicking walnuts at pensioners zooming past on rocket powered mobility scooters. It's so interesting here I could stay all day.”

“I hate it!” Pussycat grumbled. “Those sword wielding ninja hamsters manically bouncing off the edges of the vortex are giving me the heeby-jeebies, and a monstrously fat anteater riding a gigantic seahorse just called me a donkey's willy. I wanna go home!”

“Nothing's going to hurt you, Pussycat, I promise,” Doris said. “Just relax and enjoy the ride, we'll reach our destination in a few minutes.”

“Pussycat, look at that knitted aardvark stapling earwigs to his shin bones!” Owl cried. “Look at that flaming barracuda juggling oven ready turkeys and singing Auld Lang Syne, look at that nylon traffic warden shitting amethysts and reciting Moby Dick backwards in Chinese, look at that robotic unicorn tucking infeasible quantities of wriggling prawns into the oversized underpants of a reclining priest, look at-”

“Waah, I wants my mummy!” Pussycat screamed.

*************************

The vortex stopped spinning all of a sudden and its accompanying cacophony dropped to a barely audible hum. The travellers were spilled arse over tit into the middle of an expansive courtyard paved with irregular slime covered cobbles and surrounded by tall dark towers and crumbling walls topped with war torn battlements like broken teeth gnashing at a churning backdrop of ominous red clouds. Doris flew into the air, merrily whistling a racy tune, and as Owl and Pussycat helped each other up a set of wide double doors swung open in a low building at the base of the opposite tower and a horde of knee high stinky things rushed out and surrounded them. “Greetings, great king Pussycat!” the malodorous horde yelled in an irritatingly shrill tangle of voices.

“What are these abominations, Doris?” Pussycat said. “They're horrible, they look like month old dog turds clothed in a fine film of nauseous grey-green mould, and they smell utterly revolting.”

“They smell like the contents of an improbably vast charnel house at the height of a great plague and a mountain of rotting cabbages basking in the midday sun,” Owl muttered.

“I believe they've elected a spokesturd,” Doris said, fluttering a few feet above Pussycat's head.

“We are the Pooh-pooh people of Ungawungaland,” a particularly slimy looking turd said. “Hail king Eugene! We are your faithful servants.”

“Why didn't you tell me that I've been elected king of the Pooh-pooh folk, Doris?” Pussycat growled. “This is an outrage, I can't be the king of a country peopled by turds, what will the neighbours and my mates down the pub say?”

“Despite their nauseating appearance, Pussycat, the Pooh-pooh people are a fine race,” Doris said, “and I'm sure it won't take you long to get used to their unusual aroma. You'll be treated with the greatest of respect here, you'll be able to ponce around in the venerated golden turd crown decorated with highly polished Tyrannosaurus Rex stools and the baby diarrhoea coloured royal cape embroidered with thousands of freeze-dried dollops of peacock cack, and, of course, you'll amass vast piles of gold in tax from your loyal subjects.”

“We love you, king Eugene!” the spokesturd said, waving his dripping mucous coated arms in the air. “We promise to shower you with untold riches and send our armies to conquer new lands in your honour. We promise to bathe you and your dear wife daily in raw sewage, fill your diamond studded palace with our lovely fragrance and offer up the foulest looking lady turds in the kingdom as your devoted royal concubines – our women might be a bit ugly, but they go like the clappers, believe me.”

“Yuck!” Pussycat groaned, spewing his breakfast up on the cobbles.

“That's it!” Owl snapped. “I'm not bathing in sewage, and no husband of mine is having sexual relations with a seething bunch of shits. Doris, open up the wormhole and take us home this minute!”