Cat Lady

Just Another Night

I never thought a pizza delivery would turn into such a fateful event. It was a cool evening in November after dark in this small southern Idaho town. My delivery was dropped off and I turned my car around to head back to the store for hopefully only another hour before the blissful release of quitting time. When I started driving down a small hill on the old southeast side of Nampa, a bump in the road caught my eye and I stopped. My window was partly down and I heard wheezing. I knew something unusual was up so I got out to see what it was. To my horror, I saw a dying, bleeding cat lying in the road from some idiot who had run him over not paying attention. I couldn't stand to see him get run over again, so I picked him up and lay him gently on the sidewalk. He was bleeding from the head and limp, gasping through his last raggedy breaths. I started crying and cradling him, not knowing what to do. It was too late.This cat was dying, and all because of carelessness. Probably some punk kid going too fast.  No house lights were on, so I didn't bother trying to ask anyone at the nearby houses if it was their cat. I saw a bunch of strays running around though. This neighborhood was old, as in it had been built in the early 20th century, with a street to match. Looking closer in the shadows I noticed he was black and white, and a big boy. Later I would find out the people who had lived in the house I sat by had moved and just left him. I hate when they do that.  It was only a few minutes till he faded away. I couldn't do anything for him, it was too late. And I had to stop crying because I had to get back to work. Reluctantly, I got in the car and left. I wanted to go home more than ever.

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Bast stood with her feet on either side of a narrow river in her dark stone temple. The river contained the souls of cats who has passed on to her realm. Here, they would rest and play for awhile until their next incarnation. The sound of weeping met her ears. The act of kindness from the woman toward the dying cat had not gone unnoticed.

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That night, I dreamed I was back at the house, only it looked different...WAY different. This time I faced the other way toward the old abandoned white house. Yellow light spilled from an upper window, but otherwise it was dark save for only ambient faint light from a half moon that cast blue shadows over the yard. Dozens of grey white and black cats stared at me from the yard. They looked like the ancestors of the cats who ran around the streets before. Among them sat a familiar golden retriever dog, my spirit guide. Our eyes met, then he ran off. I carried a small bundle wrapped in a white blanket and somehow knew what I had to do. I parted a path through the watchful felines and climbed up the stairs inside the house. At the top sat a kind old lady in a shawl who greeted me and took the cat lovingly in her arms. She thanked me and I left. I knew something profound and unearthly had just happened. Who was the old woman? A ghost? A goddess in disguise? Had she been the one who had lived here before? I've wondered that for years.

A few years later I passed by the house, but it had been torn down. I'll always wonder about that night, when the lines of reality and dream were blurred.