It was early, I plodded the dark streets toward work. My mind was on nothing but the case. It was troubling me. More so than even the good lady's latest breakfast, Overnight Oats.
When I had inquired as to why a syphilitic badger had ejaculated into a tumbler and she was serving said tumbler to me at the breakfast table, that had been her response. Overnight Oats.
But, it looks like sperms?
I had whined as I shied away from it.
It's not bloody sperms. It's Overnight Oats!
Why? Why woman? Why do you keep saying those words?! What do they mean? What the bloody hell is Overnight Oats, Is it something you have been sitting on?
The good lady had lowered her formidable brow and growled.
There was no sitting, it's oats soaked in almond milk overnight. Try it, it's delicious.
There had been more than a hint of command to her tone.
Tremulously, I lifted a spoonful of the yellowing mass to my lips and thought of happier times. As it slid into my mouth like a lepers pessary, I tried not to scream.
Just swallow, in time you will come to love it.
Said the good lady with a manically masculine gleam in her eye.
I tried as she suggested. Reluctantly, the oatage slipped down my throat like frog spawn.
I made a noise like a cotton wool being rubbed together. It was too much. I threw the spoon down and ran.
As I left the house the good lady's shouts echoed behind me.
Eventually, I came to my senses and here I was, almost at work. My feet carrying me toward the case and my thoughts a whirl.
A few flakes of snow drifted down out of the dark skies above.
Eh? Snow? In November? It never snowed in November in Scotland. What was going on?
All of the pieces crashed into place. I understood everything at that moment.
The Clivvers acting all weird and then... Then telling me the world Wasn't the one I used to know... That I had to go back?
The mysterious robot they were building on the second. A robot? I mean, how ridiculous?
The insane plan to remove all of the testers and replace them with some sort of automated framework? Even more ridiculous.
And of course, the good lady, her normally splendid cooking being just plain rubbish. The hummus... The porridge drawer...
None of it added up. At least, it did add up but not to a number I wanted to count to.
It was so obvious now.
I was in the wrong timeline. When I had travelled into the future as part of Carlate's insane cloud experiment and then travelled back again. I had thought I had returned to the universe I was originally part of.
But no.
I made a HOUK'ing noise like a seal eating cous-cous.
I had been dead wrong.
I hadn't returned to my old world. I had gone somewhere else. Somewhere else in the multiverse. Somewhere that wasn't my home.
Somewhere where robots ruled and people ate days-old porridge in tumblers.
I knew what I had to do.
My fingers trembled as I pulled out of my phone. It wasn't just the cold that made them shake. It was the thought of who I was going to call.
I stabbed out the number like a crow darning a sock.
Despite the early hour, it answered almost immediately.
A throaty voice chuckled on the other end causing my lard-stick to twitch as if stung.
I wondered when you would call me...
