The Cat Lady

A Ghost Story. A True Story.

She whispered to the cat in her Cat Lady voice.

The cat that wasn’t there.

But it was.

I thought it in her mind’s eye until the shadowy swirl swirled through my view.

A moment of granite grey across the short pile green of carpet too old.

Not see through, but not whole, but not formed, but not alive.

She mouthed “Pretty Boy” in a low, slow exhale of love.

A secret voice of mellow tone that brought long silence after.

A voice I knew.

I worked with the Cat Lady, you see, for too many days.

In a place made of wood haunted by too many years.

Our offices adjacent, an open door in a crooked frame between.

Bedhead hair and grandma blouses and black circle eyes.

Five years younger, though she seemed 20 years more.

Twenty-seven cats at home, where she lived alone.

At the time of this story, at least, I was aware were inside.

It was her Daddy’s house, and he was sometimes there.

The only man, ever, as far as I could tell from her stories and her woe.

If only he was dead, she said, once, I heard.

Pretty loud out loud in a fit when thought alone.

The smell of piss always perfumed.

That ammonia reek of spray that stayed in the office in that sickening way.

Strands and clumps clung to her body in places I didn’t want to see.

Fur on the floor and on the chair and I bought a roller to roll it off my own ass and thighs.

Dying and death a constant, cats coming and going in diseased parade.

Natural causes remained unnatural.

“Did you see that?” she asked on a morning in a time months before.

When one of the dead jumped on her desk and rested its head.

On this morning the vision, my vision, was blurry clear.

In the threshold of between as if to know I was there.

And I held my breath in dead quiet to listen.

Her “pssssstpsssstpssssst” in a hollowed three-quarter time.

And I the fool to judge what made the Cat Lady pleased.

Her blurry furry understandings circling at her feet.

It was nearly an hour, I suppose, before I rose.

Couraged my flesh and blood again into the scene.

She desk sat straight with a chipper gaze.

In multicolor polyester, lips bright in Mary Kay knock-off red.

And our eyes met and everything I felt, felt as an envious cold.

A little bit jealous of the Cat Lady and her time with her dead.

1. Cover photo design by Author, photo from 42 North, Unsplash.

2. Photo design by Author, photo from Kevin Knezic, Unsplash.

3. Photo design by Author, photo from Paul Hanaoka, Unsplash.

4. Photo design by Author, photo from Curated Lifestyle, Unsplash.

© Copyright William Hazel, 2024