Chris Sutcliff

I ran excitedly out of the house and into the street clutching the remote control in my hand. The new batteries had cost me nearly six pounds but I had bought them anyway, the cost was a tiny sacrifice what with all the changes I was about to make. I needed to test the remote before I put my plan into action so I aimed it straight at the sky and pressed STAND BY / ON. Nothing happened but I realised that, as there were already some clouds and it was raining, then the sky must already be ON. So I pressed REWIND because yesterday it had been sunny and that had been much better. Nothing happened. It was still today and it was still raining. Something had gone wrong.

Just then Professor Hirschhorn, who is the wisest of all the alley cats, came padding through a gap in a fence and straight up to me, purring and twining his ginger tail around my ankles. He hopped up onto a nearby wall so as to be nearer to my face, twitched his whiskers in that wise way of his and fixed me with his great green cat eyes. Then he said to me:

“You cannot control your world with mere devices. You cannot rewind your life to happier days, fast forward through all the tedious times, pause when things appear to be at their best or stop when you need a break from it all. You cannot change your channel, nor record the things that you are due to miss so that you can live through them at a time that suits you better. This is your life and this is how it is lived – one moment at a time. More importantly this is your ONLY life and to treat it as casually as you do your television is a travesty. If you truly want to control your world, to control it for the right reasons, for the benefit of everyone, I’ll tell you how. Cats know the ancient secret wisdoms, but they are secret for a REASON, you must never repeat what I am about to say. All you need to do is………”

Professor Hirschhorn had to stop there because I had taken the butt of the remote control and used it to smash his ginger head in. You see, nobody likes a smart arse giving you advice when you don’t want it and also I had found the experience of being addressed in perfect English by a cat absolutely terrifying. When a cat talks to you it is because you are mentally maladjusted and should not be allowed to be on the streets near other people, armed with a remote control and it’s expensive new batteries.