Day One

2006-05-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

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Disclaimers :

The following is a work of fiction, based only loosely on real events. Any similarity between the "chav" boy in this story, and every single other "chav" male in existence is purely coincidental.

You may definitely not eat, chew, sleep with, cook, slice, dice, barter, shop, snort, inject, lick, or wear this story/poem/opinion. Any mental, health or legal problems that will arise from attempted use in mentioned fashion are your problems. I do not want to know, or hear, about your fetishes

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I wake up and stretch, flexing my claws as I swing my legs off the bed and sit up. Distantly, I can hear sounds that I've never heard before upon waking. Bird song and children laughing and car horns. I glance at the clock to confirm the dreadful suspicion lurking in my heart.

8:15 A.M

Holy shit! I'm awake in the MORNING!

Convinced this is a dreadful dream, I leap from the bed, tail thrashing in agitation and I pull back the heavy curtains from my window.

MY EYES! THEY'RE BURNING!!!

Blinking furiously, and a low hissing escaping from my throat, I force my eyes to open. Sure enough. There's children laughing and playing on their way to school, birds looping and singing to each other, and cars on the motorway, honking as they're rushing to work and stuck in traffic jams. And that great ball of burning plasma in the sky.

How did this happen? Why by all the gods am I awake during the daytime? HOW DOES THAT FIERY BALL OF SHIT KEEP BURNING SO BRIGHTLY!?

Half-blind, and dazed, I stare out the window blinking for a few more moments, until a small human blood moppet tugs on his mothers coat and points directly at me. She looks up, and immediately gasps and shields her sons eyes. Suddenly I remember, I’ve leapt straight out of bed, and neglected to pull on any clothing in my confusion. Jumping back from the window, I hastily claw the curtains back into place and hope that no arrests for indecent exposure are forthcoming. I crawl back into bed and tug the blankets over my head. After nearly half an hour of tossing and turning, I finally realize that I'll have to face the fact that I'm awake during the day and there's nothing I can do about it. Tightly closing my eyes, I crawl out from the blankets and feel for my glasses. Pulling on the crimson lenses, I can finally open my eyes without the light making them water. See? They really are more than just a fashion statement. This done, I can crawl over the bed, and look in the drawers for some clean clothing. Tugging on a pair of boxers and slightly fading black jeans, and tying back the unruly mane into some form of tidiness, I venture forth from my bedroom in search of caffeine and a smoke. lurching like a zombie in the post-dawn light, I make my way to the kitchen. I open the cupboard next to the kettle, and fall to my knees screaming.

DECAF!? FUCKING DECAF!? JESUS CHILD RAPING CHRIST ON A POPSICLE STICK WHERE IS MY COFFEE!?

When the sobbing subsides, I pull myself to my feet, and paw through the cupboard looking for caffeinated coffee. Then I remember. The mother gryphon got orders from the doctors that she's not allowed caffeine of any kind, because of some heart problem. As much as I feel for her, she didn't have to throw out my precious caffeinated coffee!!! Why must I be denied my drink of choice!? Even the tea bags were decaf! Just as I was preparing to perform armed robbery on any store within a half mile radius that had coffee on their shelves, I spotted a crumpled plastic bag at the very back of the cupboard. I reach in and snag it on a claw, pulling it closer slowly, half afraid that my hopes shall be dashed cruelly upon the decaffeinated rocks. My heart skips a beat as I look inside the bag. Coffee! Real coffee! And just enough for one cup!!!

And I have a hard on for this now. Fuck you, singing birds! Fuck you, laughing children! Fuuuuuuck you, big burning ball of bullshit in the sky!!! I have my coffee! You see this!? You're not keeping my dick down you bastards!

Eagerly, I pounce the coffee machine, emptying the contents of the bag into the filter and switching it on. Munching on some cold toast someone had left in the toaster before they had to rush to school or work, I await the hot, life giving fluid that no one I know could live without. When the last drips fall into the jug, I have to restrain myself from grabbing it straight off the hot plate and quaff the coffee straight from the burning hot receptacle. I fill a cup and add milk and sugar, then roll myself a smoke. As much as I dread going outside, I cannot smoke indoors, or mommy gryphon kind of twitches and dies. And I just know she'll be waiting for me on the other side with a spiked tesla coil if I do that. So, I slip outside and sit on the front step with my coffee and my smoke. For ten minutes, this hell of a day becomes bearable. But reality crashes in. I've drunk the last of the coffee. I'll have to go out and buy more. With money. Money I don't really have to spare. I reach for my tin to roll another smoke, and then freeze. It's... Empty.

I know now that I'm in hell. I died when I went to bed at 5 am and I've been the victim of a diabolical practical joke by the King of Hell. Any second now, Satan is going to step out of nowhere and say "Oh ho! We really had you going there! It was all a big joke! NOW SET YOURSELF ON FIRE, MOTHERFUCKER!". But, Satan doesn't appear and I now have to go out and buy more tobacco so I can continue pretending that I'm slowly giving up smoking.

Quitting smoking is pretty sucky. In the whole 'suck' arena, it's about as bad as it gets for me. That last cigarette is better than sex... I should know, I've had a hundred of them...

Slipping indoors, I pull on a shirt, and my full length coat and then venture out again into the bright light, and the birds and that ever brightening ball of plasma that hangs above the horizon to the convenience store. Well, it's called a convenience store. It's actually about two city blocks from my house, so it doesn't really live up to its name. I don't mind. My glasses protect my sensitized eyes against the suns harmful... uhh... harmfulness. And I could probably do with a little more exercise. So I pad my way to the store. When I get inside, the place is packed. There must have been a rerun of a rerun of days of our lives or something, because all the soccer moms were inside, talking to each other about some new soap opera while they were waiting in a line that ran a circle of the store almost twice.

I decide that I can't really be bothered to waste time looking for decent coffee, so I just grab some instant coffee off a shelf close to me, and join the line. I happen to be in line just behind the only other guy in the shop. He's typical of the teens in my country. Jogging bottoms with the brand of some company who jumped on the free advertising bandwagon along with Nike on them, and a dirty hoodie of the same brand, pulled over a face with protruding jaw and eyes sunken underneath a sloping brow. Despite my own distaste for the mindset of most people who dress the same way as he does, I decide not to judge a book by its cover and try striking up a conversation. Noticing that he had a basket full of Doritos, frozen burger meat and random snack foods, I catch his attention.

"So, you having a party or something then?"

He looks me up and down and sneers. "I don't know, faggot".

Well, this was a perfectly reasonable response. I looked up from where I was sucking his dick, and said "Og, ags o'ay en"... Or rather, that's what 'Oh, that's okay then' sounds like when you have a mouth full of dick.

'I don't know, faggot'. Yeah, if I really was sucking his dick at the time, he'd be perfectly justified in calling me faggot. All I did was ask him if he was having a party. I give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has short term memory problems and gets angry when he can't remember things he should. Or maybe he was just imagining me sucking his dick at the time. I don't really know. I try again. After all, the line was moving about as fast as a snail with a broken foot. So, I catch his attention again.

"What, you don't know why you're buying all that stuff?"

Again, that sneer. As if I was some sort of third world kid asking Ebenezer Scrooge for a penny. "Fuck you, you fucking pervert."

What? Was my hand fondling him without my knowing it? I look down to check. Nope, no wandering hands molesting men. Besides that, I can't think of a single other reason to why I'm being called a faggot and a pervert. Just to make sure, I wait expectantly for a few seconds for Satan to appear. No, I'm apparently still alive. Shaking my head, I simply mutter "Well, fuck you too buddy." and then have to apologize to a elderly woman when my tail, lashing involuntarily with my irritation, hits her cane and nearly sends her sprawling.

Ten minutes later, and I finally get to the counter. I ask for some tobacco, and pay for the coffee and smoking materials and trot off home again.

Despite the fact that I can feel my own pulse and that there are no lakes of fire to be seen anywhere, I'm still half-convinced that I'm somewhere deep in my own personal wing of hell. I base this almost entirely on the fact that I haven't woken up in the morning for over a year and a half now. Sure, occasionally I stay up way past noon. But that's because I have to wait for a parcel whilst the mommy gryphon sleeps. I probably got my nocturnal habits from her. As well as the half of her that's cat. Pity that I'm a full cat and not a gryphon. It'd be cool to have the wings, and talons. And a beak to peck peoples eyes out. But being a cat is cool. I get nice sharp teeth, claws and a bell to annoy the fuck out of everyone with ^-^

I get indoors, make myself one quantum singularity of a coffee. Roll a smoke. Enjoy both on the front doorstep, and then go indoors and flick on the television. My jaw drops. My tail droops. The remote falls from my paw.

The Dave Chapelle show. The worst thing on comedy central since.... Well, the worst thing on comedy central anyway. The worlds most unoriginal, uninspired shit. For those amongst us who haven't seen it, it's basically every single joke based on the black stereotype ever told, acted on screen. I retrieve the remote and look on the program guide. It's on all day...

Then, I feel someone tap my shoulder. I twist in my chair and see a hulking figure. I couldn't make out any details, except a massively muscled body, wreathed in rippling waves of darkness and two baleful crimson eyes bathing me in a hellish glow. A slightly gravely voice rings out, with a curious old upper class English accent.

"I really had you going there, didn't I old boy? The chav kid in the store was a stroke of genius if I do say so myself, and the Dave Chapelle finale? Mwah! Magnifico!" The figure pauses for a moment, and then hands me a bucket of gasoline and a Zippo lighter. "I think you know what you're meant to be doing next, hm?"

**End**

Next week in "A day in the life of Karasu, the Black Cat": Lakes of fire! ... The Return of the Revenge of the Attack of the Ex Girlfriend! ... Original artwork! ... And much, much more!

Send your comments, suggestions and hate mail to : dearkarasu@epenguin.zzn.com
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Days in the life of Karasu

Day One