A story on when you've been in the same job to long...

 I

Kerry saw she had a new email from her old schoolmate, Bryony Green. She opened it and read it excitedly. It said:

Hey girlie girl! How ya doin? I hope married life's alright. I always knew you'd get it done before me. Michael's brilliant but he thinks I should get a better job than this call centre crap before we get hitched. Fair enough, but call centre work isn't too bad. At least the customers are interesting. I had this one Australian who reckoned I couldn't speak English properly! Imagine! Him-an Aussie. Me-a relative boffin with A-Levels in English Lit, Physics, Latin and Spanish. I'm just soooo good at languages, right? Meh. I really should be doing something more challenging, eh? Ah well, time will tell.

Kerry smiled and made a vow to reply later, after she'd spent some time with her husband. We could blame her, assassinate her character through we've only just met her, but how was she to know how anxious Bryony really was? How was she to know that Bryony was sitting at her desk, stalking the screen, watering down her coffee with tears, doubting her own sanity and praying, praying that her friend would confirm. Bryony wasn't really sure what needed to be confirmed but since she'd started talking to cats she knew that had something had to change, just so she could detect it. An extra email in the account, one less kilobyte of storage, these were the daydreams Bryony was investing her hope in. If she deployed hope in some context, however trivial, perhaps it wouldn't slip away with her mind.

The buzz flared, the right light hummed and the enzymes in Bryony's blood froze.

"Good morning, welcome to Charisma Cat Food 'cos we care" whispered a voice, it was a heartbeat before Bryony realised that, against all odds, it was hers.

Then she heard it. She couldn't believe it was happening again. Her mind was aware that the sound at the other end of the line was that of a cat purring. Literally just going "meow, meow". A cat, yet another one, was phoning a cat food customer care line. But, for Bryony that wasn't the most disturbing thing. The most disturbing thing was that she could understand what the cat was saying. She was hearing the meows and purrs just as you and I would if a cat were talking to us, but she actually understood what each meow and purr meant, what they stood for and symbolized. Against it's will, Bryony's brain was translating cat noises into English. She felt her mouth begin to open, she tried to fight her own jaw but it kept falling open like a drawbridge. Then the sickening feeling returned as she heard herself say,

"Well, Mr. Cat, that's a very good question, you're right to point out that tin edges can be very sharp and potentially dangerous to both felines and humans but I'm afraid I have no knowledge of any technological advances to overcome this situation as of yet. May I suggest that you get your owner to buy you our plastic pouches of food, which I'm assured..."

Suddenly, a long, black hand descended upon the hold button. Silence. The purrs were out of Bryony's head at last. What a shame her manager wasn't out of her face.

"Bryony, are you talking to cats again?" enquired Paul Collymore condescendingly.

"I tried not to but they just keep phoning up and I understand them, just like I understand Spanish."

Paul held out his hand, palm up, indicating that he wanted Bryony to pass her headset to him. He placed it on his head, took the cat off hold and listened for a few seconds before putting him back on hold.

"Bryony, it's a cat. You're having a conversation with an animal. It's not even a talking animal. It's a purring animal. It's Disney gone wrong quite frankly."

"Quite frankly Paul, I know! But this cat is on the phone to me, I've been speaking to him and now he's probably really pissed off that we're putting him on and off hold like this!"

"Finish the call, Bry. I'm going to find someone to sit and listen to your calls with you to try and find out what the hell is going on."

Bryony gratefully accepted the headset back, put it on and took the cat off hold.

"Hello, Mr. Cat? Sorry about that, now where were we..."

II

Later that morning Sienna Hayes, team coach-quality advisor extradonnaire, came and sat down next to Bryony who was on a call (with a human at the other end). Bryony, whilst listening to the human's query, looked round slightly and made eye contact with Sienna before offering a small smile. The older woman plugged her personal headset into her protege's phone so she could listen in on the calls. When the call was done, Sienna patted Bryony on her pink cardiganed arm and gently said, "Bry, I understand you've been having some...er, problems on the phone as of late."

"You're trying to say Paul's told you that cats have been calling me up and I've been having conversations with them."

"Well, yeah, pretty much."

"And how is that a problem, exactly?" Bry smiled sweetly and, swivelled her chair round until she was facing Sienna. "Isn't it good to be multilingual in this day and age? I warned you lot on my CV that I'm good at languages!"

Sienna stared mildly at her colleague and pondered whether she was supposed to be now humouring Bry or if Bry was humouring her. Taking the mick more like. Hmm...humour or commit her. Or simply slap her, tough choice. She decided to go for option one. For the time being at least.

"Okaaay Bry," she said derisively slowly. "I'll sit with you 'till another cat comes through and then I'll listen and attempt to grasp the essence of the dynamics of the interaction between you and the animal..."

"And maybe you'll understand it too!" yelped Bryony cutting the coach short. And this time she wasn't even taking the mick.

"Er, no, I don't think...I'm not very good at...erm, languages." tittered Sienna with a degree of genuine coyness.

"Paul doesn't understand but maybe you will." persisted Bryony, a crazy look now entering her left eye."

"Well, we'll..." BEEP!

"Good morning," began Bryony evenly. "You're through to Charisma Cat Foods 'cos we care."

"meow meow meow meow?"

"Well Mrs. Cat we anticipate that we'll be launching our new range of delicious flavours in June this year. Anything else I can help with?"

"meow meow meow."

"No, thank you Mrs. Cat, have a nice day now!"

"Meow."

Bleep.

"Well? Did you understand, Sienna?" implored Bry, on the edge of her seat searching the other woman's eyes.

Sienna turned her eyes away from Bryony and towards her lap. "No. Bry, why don't you take a break for a few days? You still have loads of holiday entitlement left..."

"You think I'm crazy too, don't you?! Well, you just listen to one more cat call with me. And if you still don't understand then lock me up and throw away the bloody key!"

BEEP!

"Good morning, you're through to Charisma Cat Foods 'cos we care."

"Yes Mr. Cat of course we can send that promotional information out to your owner. What's the address?"

"Meow, meow."

"Uh-huh."

"Meow, meow, meow."

"How are you spelling that?"

"Purr, purr, purr, purr, purr, meow."

"Okay, go on."

"Meow, meow, meow."

"Okay, thanks Mr. Cat, I'll send that out today for you. Anything else?"

"Meow, meow."

"Okay, you too. Bye."

Bleep.

This time, when Bry looked into Sienna's eyes, she didn't have to search.

III

That evening, Paul Collymore strode into Sienna's office, confident that he would at last have an ally against the mad girl.

"Well? What do you think? Off her rocker, isn't she?" he sneered.

"She's not mad, Paul." whispered Sienna.

"Excuse me?"

"I've started to understand the cats too."

"Not funny, Sienna."

"Not funny-but it's true."

Paul laughed dismissively, though inside he was wondering when he was going to wake up from this surreal nightmare.

Sienna stood up abruptly. "Paul, listen. If you listen to a couple of calls- I mean all the way through-you'll start to understand them too. You will!"

"I'm not hearing this!"

"Paul, please!"

"Alright, I'll listen to a few cat calls, though I know you're playing tricks on me. I'll listen into Bry's calls. She's the only one those stupid cats seem able to phone up."

The next morning, Paul came and sat with Bryony to listen in. When it happened, he tried to ignore it but he couldn't. He ended up snatching the headset off yet the purrs wouldn't subside in his head. And what's more, the echoes were replying in English.

Epilogue

Today, if you were to call into Charisma Cat Food Call Centre you would be derided. Don't be like that, it's nothing perosnal, it's just that people tend to laugh at what they fear and what people fear is what they don't understand. And the people working at Charisma Cat Food Call Centre no longer understand humans over the phone. And when they speak on the phone, humans no longer understand them.

So if I were you, the next time you have a burning question about feline foods, I'd just dial and let your cat do the talking-unless, of course, you are a cat. In which case, "meow! meow! meow!"