Everything Happens to Everybody by Guy A. Duperreault Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

George Bernard Shaw Jack finished watching Groundhog Day. Again. No, it wasn't the groundhog's day, today being only January 15. And at 3:15 pm Jack turned off the Blu-Ray player, as he did every afternoon. Then, after turning off the TV, he turned to look at Jill, the tom cat that was resting his head on its paws on the decrepit couch. It was so long ago that he'd tagged the two of them 'Jack 'n Jill' that the joke no longer brought even a synaptic tickle to smile, nor the urge to remember a time when it did. Jill's whiskers were twitching to some kind of cat dream. What was he doing, in his dreams? he thought. Chasing mice, maybe? And does he remember them? What a perfect expression of spiritual growth, he thought as he reached past the empty bags of chips and Chinese takeout boxes to scratch Jill behind his ears. It took comic genius to use an 'overgrown rat' as the inspiration for spiritual enlightenment! Jack pushed his heavy black rimmed glasses back up his nose, brushed off the remnants of potato chips, nuts and dried noodles off his shirt. He looked out the window. He could see reflected in the blinded window in the building across from his suite that the sky was greyed with dark and threatening clouds. They reminded him of Phil Connor, Murray's weatherman, weathering with dismay his being betrayed by snow filled clouds and his misplaced faith in his meteorological science. Jack laughed. 'Science,' he told the cat, 'thinks that the simplistic act of naming things is enough. Hah! The label of DNA is as explanatory to the why of life as is Allah, Buddha and Anne of Green Gables combined.' Jill had heard this cant many times before, and so continued to dream his little dream of Koi and catfish flicking their tails just out of reach beneath the surface of a sun drenched pond. From behind him, through the apartment door, Jack heard muffled voices. That's unusual, he thought. He strained his suddenly vicarious ear to hear what was being said. However, except for an odd or partial word or two, all he could distinguish was muffled female voices with a palpable edge of excitement. Jack pushed himself up from the couch. That was unusual enough to wake Jill who cat-stretched while Jack waded through the ankle deep detritus to plant himself against the door. He looked through the peep hole through which he saw two very tall and large women standing face to face, both vociferously condemning the other and wildly gesticulating to make their points. 'You bitch!' seemed to be the most frequently used phrase as it was used repeatedly by both woman, but without the benefit of any details. His long dormant and forgotten impulse to help caused his hand to involuntarily reach

for the locks. Before he was even aware of what it was doing he'd slid off the chain and clicked open the deadbolt. The two in the hallway heard the door unlock, and with that cue simultaneously stopped their mutual verbal assaults. Jack did not notice the silence when he opened the door and stepped through the doorway for the first time in many months. 'Excuse me,' he began to say, 'can I He didn't see them each swing one of their fists, heavily weighted with a roll of 50 cent coins, to make contact with his face. The combined force sent him flying backwards almost as fast as he was moving towards unconsciousness. As awareness left him his limp mass smashed against the arm of the couch with enough energy to push the couch through the bedroom door. Jill's feline instincts kicked in and he leapt from his end of the couch with the hope of alighting atop of the safe vantage of the high TV. But at least in part from his lack of practice Jill misjudged his strength and the TV's distance. He hit the flat screen full frontal before falling to the floor with stars spinning around his head, just like in the cartoons. 'Okay,' Jill heard a woman's familiar voice say, 'you take the one foot, I'll take the other.' Without quite being able to comprehend fully what he was seeing, it appeared that Jack was being dragged through a wave of garbage by two transvestites with the shoulders and biceps of wannabe bouncers. 'You'd think that this guy would learn,' he heard, 'that not paying the rent is bad business.' He heard laughter. 'How many times does this make it that we've dragged this sorry ass back to his old man's place? Five, six?' More laughter. 'And every time he falls for it. Every time!' The three people moved from his line of vision. 'Damn,' Jill heard echo from the hallway 'we can't forget the cat! The last time we did cost us our bonus!' With a peculiar feeling of deja vu Jill struggled to his feet on wobbly legs. He began to fight his way through the thick trash covering the floor back towards the partially destroyed couch. He hoped he would be able to hide under it, although the thought of what else might be under it already gave him an uneasy feeling. But before he was even half way there he heard a 'Oh no you don't!' and an incredibly strong hand gripped him from under his chest and lifted him into the air. 'Gotcha! You seem to be getting slower, eh, cat?' And more laughter.