Night Errands

I sit here once again in the killing drifts of very early A.M. (12:20am to be precise) without lights, save one candle, and until ten minutes ago I was content. In fact I was more than content; I was lost in my own world as I roamed the interwebs for morbid chapters of interest, sipping on a chamomile tea. Until my cat, Skyelar, decided I needed a fright (theres a reason they got on so well with witches you know.) She sat up from her spot on the sofa (I prefer the floor myself so we switched places when she moved in) and began staring through the darkness, out into the hall.
Nobody was there of course and all was silent but kitty would not be put off. To her there WAS something out there, which of course made me think there WAS something out there too. And this is when the memory jukebox in my mind selects an article I had read at least fifteen years ago and presses PLAY. It was a piece about ghosts and which animal out of a dog, cat or rat could sense a spiritual presence the most. In turn they are locked in a supposedly haunted room; doggy varely notices a thing (no suprise there), Mr Rat is jittery and seems to be aware of something but moggy is different. The feline KNOWS that he isn't alone (cats know everything) and proceeds to skit all over the room like fat in a frying pan.
It felt like my brain was in competion with Skyelar to see who could scare me most. The black seemed to thicken as both my pet and I peered into its heart and I was quite convinced that at any moment something unpleasant would reveal itself, stepping out of the tarry hall either like Macbeth's ghost or The Wolfman.
We stayed like this for some minutes (it felt much longer) with me turning from the darkness every few seconds to look at the back of my cats head as if willing her to return the look and perhaps admit she was only winding me up. (Yeah yeah, like a cat would ever do that!)
And of course the dark plays tricks with the mind (especially one filled with crazy imagination to begin with) and combined with a silence that is usually reserved for the slumber of the dead, it can create an all too potent mixture. At times I believe it powerful enough to be able to actually pull spirits from their world into ours and give breath to creatures best kept in nightmares.
There was nothing actually in the hall of course, I could have safely got up and allowed myself to be shrouded by the shadows. There was nothing within them, no goblin with cruel eyes and razor fangs, no deathly reaper come to deliver me to the bowels of hell. All that was there was night, evaporating in a million dreams.
Skyelar went back to her pillow, releasing me from the midnight spell.
Looking back on this in the day will be hilarious because light makes even cowards bold abd there are no savage ogres waiting to seize your throat when the sun is up. (Well actually there are but those types are of this world not of the Other World, those silky spectres can only shine and come alive beneath moonlight.)