Wednesday 5 October 2016

A black cat in the dark


When I was a child I used a short-cut for the long walk to school, which was a steep and sandy path running past the edge of a wood, on one side of a small valley.

There was a big, old, derelict house on the far side, and it had not been lived in for many years, plus  many more years after I first went into it with a friend to explore. These were the days when places were made more charming and mysterious by having paths left unmettled and houses left unoccupied. The days before property became an investment and not just a place for families to live, grow up, and move out or die.

The evening that my friend and I ventured into the house was on an Autumn night on the way back from school. Before climbing in through a broken window, we noticed the far-gone remains of a dead dog in the garden outside, and wondered if this was the family pet who missed the last removal van and waited for his owners to return.

Inside, various articles were left just as they had been put down, and the place had an air of Miss Haversham about it.

As darness fell, we searched for the light switches, but a combination of no power and missing bulbs meant that the place became too spooky to stay, so we clambered back out and climbed up to the other side of the valley, where we sat down and viewed it in the gathering gloom.

As we watched, all the windows lit up and began flashing on and off randomly, as if there was a person in each room, madly flicking the switches.

We looked at each other in disbelief, and vowed to go back in next day to check again for light bulbs. We did and there were none.

A few nights later, I was walking down the same sandy path in a dream. It was the dead of night and I did not think it odd that I was only about fifteen inches high. I was on some sort of urgent mission, but it was such a secret one that even I did not know what it was.

Walking was too slow for me, so I climbed on the back of a black cat which had come to check me out, and spurred it off, galloping in the darkness.

I could feel the wind in my hair, the cat's shoulderblades rythmically going up and down beneath its fur and my hands, and a fantastic sense of exhilaration as we sped along. I tried to have the same dream many times afterwards, but to no avail.

I remember this now because of a dream I had last night. I was a dog, running fast and effortlessly through the shallows of a wide beach.

24 comments:

  1. I remember dreams in which I'm existing, not just participating. Flying.....
    But they don't happen any more. So, I like hearing of yours.

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  2. I don't know what you're on, but I wouldn't half like some of it! Blessings

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    1. I wasn't on them then, and I'm not on them now.

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    2. But there was quite a long period in the middle when I was...

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  3. Ground Control to Major Tom
    Take your pills and put your helmet on....

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  4. I suppose you could call this the opposite of anthropomorphism (if I could spell it).

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    1. I believe you have hit on the right spelling, Weave. Yes, it's usually the other way round. A friend of mine dreamt he was stroking a cat on his lap the other night, when it looked up and said, "Where would you like to go now?"

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    2. Actually, now I think about it, it sounds like my cat.

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  5. Bloody hell you've gone all daphne du Maurier

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    1. You're right John! I love it!

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    2. du Maurier upset me when I was younger. I wonder if I could read her again.

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    3. I'm not having anyone upset you, Joanne - tell me where she lives and I'll go round and punch her lights out.

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  6. Were you the dog's bollock's ?!!!!! XXXX

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  7. Your childhood exploration of the deserted house and later seeing the flashing lights within is an experience I'd wish every child to have.

    Some aspects of your dream are similar to some of mine, except that in mine, I play the part of the cat. A friend who claimed the ability to interpret dreams told me what those dreams meant, but I've now forgotten most of the interpretation other than some longing for freedom.

    Best wishes.

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    1. I have a feeling that children can become so immersed in shared imaginary experiences that these things - like the moving statues in Catholic countries - are fairly commonplace, but I like to think of them as real.

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  8. I wonder if you remember Pete Smith? He had been brought up in St Kitts, and said that many of the old Plantation Houses had simply been abandoned, and jungle taken over. He used to visit some of them, and said they were filled with antique furniture and huge chandeliers. I don't suppose they are any more, but I like the idea.

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    1. My memories of Pete Smith have been eroded by knowing someone with the same name, here in Bath. I liked the story of the Spanish Galleon found in a South American jungle - made entirely of the vines and creepers which had grown over it before it rotted away.

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