The creature stretched itself lazily in front of its custom made mirror.With its one good eye,it scoped out the little room,shrouded in semi-darkness.Was this real life?Was it just fantasy?It recalled lazing on the plush purple velvet pillow in the afternoons while licking its fur to the sounds of Bohemian Rhapsody and the taste of freshly picked grapes.Life was ethereal back then;when it put the cat in catwalk.
Shika Paka Power was a retired cat who once endorsed Eveready batteries in his glory days.Shika was used to the roaring adulation:the fans,the TV adverts and radio interviews,the billboards;oh the precious billboards!
In the late 90’s to early 2000’s,Shika Paka Power was the cat to watch.All the top animal magazines wanted him on their covers.Lady cats wanted him,male cats wanted to be him.The very ground that he walked on was worshipped.Simply put,he was a deity among cats.His salary was in the triple zeros and his mansion inside Tusker Mattresses was the dream residence for cats all over Kenya.
He shook his head severally as he came back from his reverie.Now he was an old cat.Matted, shedding fur and his once blemishless white-and-black fur had patches of discoloration and he could not see out of one eye.What of his once rich,deep baritone of a meow?The years of liquor and catnip had turned it shrill.He was a cat-about-town and therefore was a Casanova even before the term was invented.His one true love Catalina?He went the Amerix way and acted like the ‘prize’.Shika Paka Power was the kind to make Andrew Tate quake in his boots,from the sheer number of kitties he had seen and interacted with in the span of his short career.He had been on top of everything.
Like any respectable influencer,Shika Paka Power had a mortal enemy,who he detested with every bone in his cat body.You might be wondering who this enemy was.You guessed right!The pink,fluffy Energizer bunny and his minions!
Energizer bunny was the brand ambassador of a fast-growing battery brand that had infiltrated the Kenyan market seemingly out of nowhere.More than anything,Shika was seething with jealousy and rage.Who was this bunny and who did he think he was to act all high-and-mighty in a field that already had Wakurus?How dare he try to steal attention from the almighty Shika Paka Power!Turns out Shika’s instincts were right:Energizer won in the end.
Sad,I know.It was twenty years now and Shika had never bounced back.He lulled his days away in his Tusker Mattresses (modern day Tuskys) apartment.The supply of food did not exist anymore seeing as the Tusker Matt owners fought over trivial matters and the elephant that was the chain of supermarkets.
Inhaling while painfully meowing at his contraption of a mirror,Shika lay to his side, breathing his last.He had not eaten for five days.How the mighty fall!
A moment of silence to honour the legend.
The Beeš
Manenoz 