Ghost Cat, Part I

Image: sparkyspitfire.wordpress.com

I'm new at living with cats. Before I moved in with my boyfriend, I was allergic to them, just like my mother. My mother always had dogs when I was growing up, and I loved every one of them. In fact, before I met my boyfriend my mom's current dog was my best friend. I was so into that dog that I couldn't bear to have her eat regular dog food and made her fresh meals with organic meat.
That all changed when I moved in with Miguel. He has a stand-offish but beautiful tortoiseshell cat, Razzy, who eventually took to me and me to her. I quickly became Razzy's favorite piece of furniture and preferred sleeping spot. It felt like a triumph to have finally won the affection of this animal, much like I had eventually won over her owner. And before long my cat allergy seemed to go away. I guess Razzy innoculated me with her little love bites and cat-claw accupunture until my system became inured to her particular brand of allergen.

I grew to love Razzy so much that I didn't care when she scratched me and literally gave me cat scratch fever. I'm not sure what happened because I was asleep. I know that seems unlikely, how could I sleep through a cat scratching me? Honestly, I don't know! I'm a very light sleeper, I practically have an insomnia disorder. It was a really gnarly, ugly scratch too. About 8"-9" long and all red with blood and instant infection. It was on the soft skin on the inside of my forearm, starting just above my wrist and ending almost at my elbow bend.  

At the time I worked a hideously early shift at a call center and got up at 2:45 am, giving me 15 minutes to get dressed in the dark and brush my teeth, before leaving for my half-hour commute to my 3:30 am shift. I didn't even notice the scratch until I got to work and went to the bathroom. I pulled the sleeve of my sweater up to wash my hands and I caught sight of it in the mirror over the sink. I could hardly believe my eyes. It didn't hurt that much but it was really ugly. I ended up getting swollen lymph nodes and a persistent fever and had to take antibiotics. Miguel theorized that Razzy was sleeping on me and got startled, suddenly pushing off me with her hind legs and accidentally scratching me with a rear paw.

Razzy

Anyway, the name of this story is Ghost Cat, so let's get to the ghost part. I should explain that, as much as I love ghost stories, I'm not sure I believe in ghosts. I've never seen a ghost or even felt like I've been in the same room with one. Well, except for one time I think I may have heard a ghost in my friend Amber's house. Amber and her roommate had been telling me about weird, spooky stuff happening in their home that seemed to be centered around the threshold between the kitchen and living room. Weird stuff like pictures falling off the walls, items spontaneously falling from shelves, unexplained banging sounds and becoming overcome by feelings of dread and doom when passing through that area. I did not disbelieve these stories, but I had not seen or felt anything like that in their home or anywhere, ever. I considered myself to be insensitive to the spirit world. I figured, if there's ghost-whisperer spectrum then I fall on the end opposite from Jennifer Love Hewitt and the "I see dead people" kid. 

Then one evening I was at Amber's house and we were talking in the kitchen. Amber and her roommate moved into the living room and I followed them, stopping for a moment in the "haunted" threshold. All of a sudden I became aware that I was hearing the buzz of conversation in the kitchen behind me. It sounded like there were many people talking, like at a news office or a party, and it seemed that I had been hearing this sound unconsciously at a low level for a while. And then as soon as I took notice of the sound and glanced over my shoulder, it stopped. I looked back at Amber and her roommate with a confused look, and then my eyes got wide with fright and Amber asked, "You heard something, didn't you?" I just nodded and hurried into the living room with cold tingles running up my spine. I couldn't speak for about at least a minute, I was so rattled by the experience. Amber later told me that after her roommate moved out the ghost problems stopped.

Years later I moved into Miguel's home, became a fervid feline aficionado, and started encountering what I can only explain as a ghost cat. This started almost right away after I moved in, and although I had been hanging out at Miguel's house and spending the night with him a lot over the previous 3 years, I didn't experience it until I lived here. I took over the room previously occupied by Miguel's former roommate, and turned it into my "sanctuary"/closet/moving box waystation. From time to time while in this room I would hear a cat meowing, but I couldn't tell exactly where the sound was coming from. When I would go and look for the cat, at first assuming it was Razzy, I could never find it. However, I would often find Razzy sound asleep and obviously not having just meowed. After a short time I came to recognize all variations of Razzy's meow, and I could tell it was not her making this meowing sound.
This kept happening, but so infrequently that I forgot about it between instances. The only explanation I could conceive of for the mysterious meowing was that it was a feral cat outside who ran away when it heard me coming. But if that was the case, why had I never even caught a glimpse of a cat running away, not even the tip of a tail?

I started to think I was going crazy, and then one day Miguel heard it too.

To be continued....