'Second Time Lucky'
"Stupid Cat."
"Meow."
Sometimes it was as if Dizzy knew what people were saying. He always replied, and the tone seemed to change from meow to meow. Or perhaps it just counteracts the feeling of being alone; anthropomorphising the one other non-inanimate thing in one's flat. It's not easy keeping a social life with bills to pay, and university to keep up with. As for love… Nicolas had taken a whole lot more than his fill by sixteen. He really preferred not to talk about it. Ask him about his family and he'll happily, or rather-more to the contrary, tell you how they buggered off to Spain leaving him with nothing but a cat and a note, that note being a five pound note with "for dizzy" scribbled on it. Nothing in life worth having comes easy, Nicolas pondered, re-thought his previous anecdote and corrected himself; life (worth having) doesn't come easy, I've got nothing. Oh, except that bloody-great pile of papers on the bed. But at three in the morning with a full day of lectures and extra work the next day Nicolas knew that trying to work through it all had a purer level of futility than insulting the cat. So, like any other sensible person, he forced the papers to dismount their dysfunctional steed with a flurry of duvet and fell to the saddle of sleep in their place.
"Meow,"
"Stupid Cat."
"Meow."
"What? Have I overslept?" How could I reply to a me-"OW!" Nicolas was about to think, before Dizzy used his marbled-silver, lion-esque paw to clatter the alarm clock onto his head, causing him to exclaim the prior mentioned exclamation, feel sorry for himself, get annoyed at the cat, see that the cat was about as cute as a bang on the head isn't, reach out to the cat, get bitten and realise he should check the time. The time was early: 06:36 to be exact.
"Bloomin' 'ell, Diz."
Then Nicolas divided thirty six by six. Random, he concluded, indecisively. With this Nicolas vacated his current area of antics straight onto the last night's consequences. The poor guy slipped off those papers like they did off the bed, over-dramatically, you need not know what his exclamation(s) were in this instance. Upon hitting the floor he saw the paper was all still in what vaguely, really very vaguely, resembled stacks. There were about six of them, hold on, no; three rows by four, with roughly seven papers in each, all over the floor. The words (a sound and a word to be pedantic) 'meow' and 'idiot' followed simultaneously.
"Meow." Dizzy insisted.
"Urgh." Nicolas resisted. Unfortunately the moggy made like a metronome, mewing metronomic mal messages more maliciously than an 'emo' band at the height of another guitar solo. Had Nicolas not made his way to the fridge (as led by Dizzy) insanity would probably have had a speedy inset. What the F- o, r, t, y, t, w, o? There it was. The answer, to why Dizzy had been scratching at the fridge: He had been arranging the fridge magnets.
Poor old Nicolas didn't even give a second thought or a first thought, in fact, as to his cat having just done something very human indeed, he just thought Douglas Adams really did know it all along. Maybe it was giving into the metronome that really did lead to insanity. The answer to life, the universe and everything really had been published in some children's books.
"Meow."
"Shush, Cat."
Then something must've clicked. An impulse shot, like a vodka, through Nicolas as he grabbed a pen and paper, then some more paper, and more, and another pen, and more paper. Dizzy could see it, the question was there, the ultimate question, was closer than two lovers. Then it came! Not dissimilarly to two lovers, absolute joy. Only…
Nicolas Hint, the single most valuable collection of matter in the universe, had to get to a lecture. It was 07:06. He was in a complete daze. Wouldn't you be a bit fazed out if you'd just had a morning like his? He was on the edge of the pavement but not in the road, and buses were usually quite slow along the high street, but still, it would make the front page of the local newspapers, at least.
"Twenty four," Dizzy muttered. All of Earth's power into finding the ultimate question and the answer's wrong, "all of Nic's workings came to twenty four, forty two, backwards." Nicolas getting hit was a bit backwards too, considering his rise the poor guy had met a rather premature demise. Trust public transport. The whole ordeal was more ironic than that appliance used for pressing creases out of clothes. "Oh well, here we go again." Dizzy purred to himself, in the RSPCA cell.