Catharsis (2)

I’m looking after a cat for the week. It’s the cutest pet and sometimes my mind falls away with it.

Are metaphors successful if nobody else understands them?

In the past my mind employed harmless ideas to cover up ghosts. The groping fingers of my grey matter would drape its ghouls in silks and baubles like nightmare after Christmas trees with too many blinking lights. The neural pathways would short out, the lights would come on without warning and blink me into submission with their cheer. I was caught out by those lights and never noticed the ghosts wafting closer and nearer.

Stealthy they would creep and then, inexplicably, a black cat would cross my path. The cat would boast the glossiest of coats and the most direct stare, I would have to stop and pet it not suspecting for a moment the clamp of its jaw and the scrape of its claws.

I petted that cat for so long the light drained out from the day and the mosquito’s came out; planets crossed the depths of the night sky above me.

When I looked back up I had moved.

I was standing in an empty room with dirty walls and floor boards which creaked, in front of me was a looming wardrobe with an open door. I could hear strains of music coming from inside it and the longer I stared the louder that music seemed to get. It was engrossing and I never noticed how high the ceiling was above me.

Bats nestled, watched silently and judging with utter indifference.

The music turned to groaning: I knew I had stood for too long without either stepping forward or turning away and now the ghosts would come again. The air turned cold, I could see my breath in front of me; fairy lights started twinkling in the corners of my eyes.

 

 

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