BLACK CATS ON HALLOWEEN

This pretty feral comes to visit from time to time.

CAT'S EYES

I had a rather strange experience when I was around 15 years old.

My room was in the basement of my parents' house. Picture a typical half finished basement: concrete floors, a few rooms, small windows scattered around, old furnace, you know the drill.

We lived in a heavily wooded area out in the country; many of our childhood days were spent playing in the woods.

My room was being finished and it only had a partial wall at the time. While lying in my bed, I could see across part of the basement to the further wall. Against the wall was a washer and dryer, and above that was a small egress window.

I remember waking from my sleep one night with a strange feeling, almost like something was in the room with me. I slowly opened my eyes, straining to adjust to the darkness. My eyes were affixed on the window across the basement. There was something floating in the air. Something strange and yellow.

A mixture of confusion and fear gripped me. What was across the basement? As my eyes adjusted, I realized it was another pair of eyes looking back at me. Our gaze was locked for what felt like an eternity. No movement, nothing.

After a while, there was some movement in the window; the eyes bobbed from side to side. I was truly terrified at this point. As I slunk deeper into my covers, I started to see the outline of a creature. It turns out it was a black cat, staring at me while I slept. It ran off and I didn't see it again for many years. It wasn't our cat - we didn't even own a cat. I never saw it before or after...well, so I thought at the time...

Fast forward to my mid-twenties. I was dating a girl who loved cats. It just so happened that she had a large black cat (which reminded me of the incident from my childhood). She is a nurse and often works overnights. I would go over her place in the evening and go to bed. She would come home very late and snuggle in with me.

One night, I was lying in her bed, half asleep. I rolled to my side and had a strange feeling...something was watching me. I slowly opened my eyes to see a pair of yellow orbs staring back at me. Initially, I thought it was her cat (as she often let them outside). I began to feel some relief. That's when I heard her cat next to me in bed, hissing at the cat outside, hair on edge.

Being more freaked out than ever, I quickly turned to face the other direction. I slowly rolled back over and the cat was no longer outside the window.

I now live in a house with small windows in the basement. I'm waiting for the day where I fall asleep on the couch downstairs, closed eyes facing towards the window...

Story source.

#HALLOWEEN: BLACK CAT

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.