Flea in your ear

"I said don't jump," the voice said. I hadn't jumped that far and had a view of the cat that I had ended up on.

"You'll be wondering who I am?"

To be sure. I had been in a terrible state for a long time. Or what felt like a long time since the procedure had happened.

I was struggling to speak. It was as if I had been under some form of anaesthetic.

"The anaesthetic takes a couple of hours to wear off," the voice remarked casually. "That's why you didn't jump that high, I guess. I'll have to make a note of that."

"Listen," I managed to say and felt my self coming round from whatever had happened. "Everything's going to be OK?"

"For you? Of course not. What did you expect?"

"What happened to me?"

"You brought it all on yourself. You will remember in a while and then you will gradually forget."

I tried to open my eyes.

"I can't see."

"Not yet, your new eyes will need time to develop. In the mean time, I expect your are thirsty."

I felt like I had been to the worst dentist in Cleveland.

"This is a dream right? No. Can it? I just saw a huge cat's nose and mouth like real close up?"

Flea in your ear

"Nothing big about the cat," said the voice from behind the lush grey curtain that somehow lay all around. "Follow me."

"But I can't see you," I said.

"Follow the voice. We're going to the lakes for water."

I crawled through the undergrowth pushing myself along the warm ground. I was hungry and my head throbbed with pain.

"All will be revealed once we've got to the lakes."

Ah, the lakes. I remember on the Waterhay with Julie, in the rowing boat and the sun glinting on the water.

"Come on stop day-dreaming we've got to get there or you'll die."

All at once, the whole world seemed to shake and we were thrown and tossed around.

"Use you clamps to hold onto the fur or skin."

Flea in your ear

I held on as best I could. The movement became regular and the light changed.

"It's so bright. It hurts," I cried.

"Stop whining and burrow further into the fur."

Like the demystification after a huge drinking bout, the past shimmered before my frazzled consciousness. Something had happened to Julie.

"I want to see Julie," I said as I continued to follow the voice.

"Ain't gonna happen in this life. Come on, nearly there."

"Who are you?"

"I'm your parole officer."

"My..." I started to say but somehow couldn't finish the sentence.

"You won't remember. You're a prototype. An experimental punishment. You and a flea genome were put into a Telecorp machine and BAM you were turned into a flea and your human husk incinerated. Least they could do after you did that to Julie. Ha. I sent you away with a flea in your ear."

I was too busy drinking to hear.