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.