Instant Karma ... The Lives of Trehorn Sandhu-Smythe
— Life 16038 —
Trehorn squirmed between the canisters on the counter of Miss Paisley Aforesaid's kitchen. He peeked over the sugar stored in one of the clear acrylic containers, and much to his dismay, there by the stove stood the half-dressed Miss Aforesaid with a long plastic spatula in her hand. The moment he saw her, she saw him.
A change in Trehorn's colour swept over his knobby body, and his grey-green prehistoric skin was transformed and matched the yellow of the counter top perfectly.
Too late.
A shriek punctuated by the words, "You little bastard!" filled the air.
The race was on.
Trehorn scurried from between the canisters and down the length of the counter top. He skittered behind the Mr Coffee, leapt over tub of Becel, crashed through a bottle of Ibuprofen, and smacked into a box of Cheez-Its. Finally, he zigzagged around the dangerously cavernous sink and propelled himself over the end of the counter. Catching the empty air with the fullness of his little body, he managed to land safely just inches from an open recycling bin.
The flutter of Miss Aforesaid's woolly slippers kicked and stomped at him, as he high-tailed his way along the baseboards towards the dining room.
"It's not bad enough being trapped in this ever-changing Technicolor body," he thought to himself, "now I have to make like Charlie Chaplin in a Keystone Cop misadventure."
In his 3939th life, Trehorn would often go to the cinema with his adoptive mother, and to this day, he remembered her with great fondness. She would buy him a bag of popcorn and a nickel Coke, and together they would watch the first talkies at the Crown Theatre in London's West End. It was a rich and full life that Trehorn enjoyed above all the others. But that was before the great war and the bombings.
The route to the porch door seemed easy enough. It gaped open just yards ahead of him, and the morning sunlight was streaming across the hardwood floor. Trehorn sensed the freedom of the great outdoors, when suddenly the world became a fog of sticky gas. There, directly in his path, stood Miss Aforesaid. In her hand was a tall can of insect spray, which she held at her hip like a gunfighter in a Saturday morning horse opera on television. She sprayed him once directly in his face, and then once again just to be certain she had not missed her mark.
Trehorn marvelled at the sour scent of lilac wafting through the air, held his breath for a moment, and then conceded defeat as his lungs filled with the poisonous gas. His little body convulsed once, and then he lay flat on his side, just a short distance from the lawn and the ornamental shrubbery where he might have spent long summer days basking peacefully in the sun.
"This would have been such an easy life," he moaned sadly to himself, but it was a life that he would never see with his 3-D reptilian eyes again.
Trehorn felt suddenly cold and wet, but looking back over his dorsal fin, he was quite enamoured of the long and flowing orange tail that spread out in the shape of a fan behind him, and for some odd reason, that swish of orange propelling him through the water made Trehorn remember the geishas of Kyoto.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or actual events is purely coincidental.
— Life 16038 —
Trehorn squirmed between the canisters on the counter of Miss Paisley Aforesaid's kitchen. He peeked over the sugar stored in one of the clear acrylic containers, and much to his dismay, there by the stove stood the half-dressed Miss Aforesaid with a long plastic spatula in her hand. The moment he saw her, she saw him.
A change in Trehorn's colour swept over his knobby body, and his grey-green prehistoric skin was transformed and matched the yellow of the counter top perfectly.
Too late.
A shriek punctuated by the words, "You little bastard!" filled the air.
The race was on.
Trehorn scurried from between the canisters and down the length of the counter top. He skittered behind the Mr Coffee, leapt over tub of Becel, crashed through a bottle of Ibuprofen, and smacked into a box of Cheez-Its. Finally, he zigzagged around the dangerously cavernous sink and propelled himself over the end of the counter. Catching the empty air with the fullness of his little body, he managed to land safely just inches from an open recycling bin.
The flutter of Miss Aforesaid's woolly slippers kicked and stomped at him, as he high-tailed his way along the baseboards towards the dining room.
"It's not bad enough being trapped in this ever-changing Technicolor body," he thought to himself, "now I have to make like Charlie Chaplin in a Keystone Cop misadventure."
In his 3939th life, Trehorn would often go to the cinema with his adoptive mother, and to this day, he remembered her with great fondness. She would buy him a bag of popcorn and a nickel Coke, and together they would watch the first talkies at the Crown Theatre in London's West End. It was a rich and full life that Trehorn enjoyed above all the others. But that was before the great war and the bombings.
The route to the porch door seemed easy enough. It gaped open just yards ahead of him, and the morning sunlight was streaming across the hardwood floor. Trehorn sensed the freedom of the great outdoors, when suddenly the world became a fog of sticky gas. There, directly in his path, stood Miss Aforesaid. In her hand was a tall can of insect spray, which she held at her hip like a gunfighter in a Saturday morning horse opera on television. She sprayed him once directly in his face, and then once again just to be certain she had not missed her mark.
Trehorn marvelled at the sour scent of lilac wafting through the air, held his breath for a moment, and then conceded defeat as his lungs filled with the poisonous gas. His little body convulsed once, and then he lay flat on his side, just a short distance from the lawn and the ornamental shrubbery where he might have spent long summer days basking peacefully in the sun.
"This would have been such an easy life," he moaned sadly to himself, but it was a life that he would never see with his 3-D reptilian eyes again.
Trehorn felt suddenly cold and wet, but looking back over his dorsal fin, he was quite enamoured of the long and flowing orange tail that spread out in the shape of a fan behind him, and for some odd reason, that swish of orange propelling him through the water made Trehorn remember the geishas of Kyoto.
