Tom and Jerry is one of the most
popular cartoon series to ever exist.
Alongside Looney Tunes, it is safe to
say almost everyone has heard of the
cast of Tom and Jerry - especially the
titular cat and mouse duo which made
the show what it is.
I've watched every Tom and Jerry
cartoon imaginable, even a few most
people probably never even heard
about - there is one episode however
not even I have seen, an episode that
was never aired. Now I bet you're
asking "Well then, how do you even
know about this episode?".
The answer is quite simple, my cousin
claims to have seen it due to links with
online piracy and so forth (which I can
not condone but, hey, I can't very well
control the actions of my cousin can
I?).
The following story is what my cousin
told me and to be frank you can take
from it what you will... maybe he was
making it up or maybe there was some
truth in it... at any rate it will likely raise
a few eyebrows, it sure did when I told
it to my friends...
It began, my cousin claims, one night
when he was on the computer - one of
his friends sent him a pirated version
of a supposedly unaired Tom and Jerry
episode named "Suffering": my cousin
was skeptical of this and played it
expecting a hoax.
Instead what he got was the traditional
Tom and Jerry intro, which cut to a red
screen with the text Suffering printed in
bold.
The screen faded to show Tom sitting
alone in what appeared to be an
abandoned house, looking rather ill
and dejected - he just sat there for a
few minutes in silence before he got to
his feet and slowly made his way over
to a nearby wall.
Tom stared at the mouse hole in the
wall for a few more minutes as the
camera shifted, zooming into the
mouse hole and revealing Jerry in his
little matchbox "bed" - the camera
zooming in on the mouse, who lay
motionless with his eyes closed as if
asleep.
Jerry's fur was lighter than usual and
everything was silent - in stark
contrast to the usual chaos of the
cartoon.
The camera once again zoomed out to
show Tom standing outside the mouse
hole, the cat suddenly breaking down
on the spot as he cried bitterly and fell
to his knees: banging on the wall
repeatedly.
The camera zoomed back to Jerry, still
laying in the little match-box bed: Tom
banging on the wall outside as Jerry
remained absolutely still.
The scene then faded to black and a
message appeared reading:
"Life is fleeting and it is not until it is
gone that friends truly understand...
years of arguing come to an end...
petty squabbling... pointless
suffering... now it is too late... you had
your chance... you are alone..."
My cousin claims that's where it ended
and he felt a deep sense of despair in
his heart which he says never really
went away, even today he claims to
feel that same sense of despair - as if
someone or something had taken
away his sense of meaning.
I asked my cousin to show me the
episode but he said he wouldn't want
me to feel the way he did and refused,
in some ways that made me kind of
doubtful at first... though now, looking
back, I feel he genuinely didn't want to
share whatever he experienced with
me...
The rest I shall leave for you to decide.
