I retired a few years ago now and part of my retirement plan was to return to beauty and peacefulness of my hometown. Its a very small town with fewer that 6,000 living souls where you can leave your house unlocked and go for a walk at any time, day or night. The only people you are likely to meet are people you went to school with, or their children. As luck would have it, my nephew and his wife had just vacated the small cottage located in a 5 acre park along with the house in which my mother, brother and sister-in-law live. I happily moved in but from the very start something odd began to happen. Guests that i would invite in to see the progress of my settling in, began to ask about a cat. One guest even brought it a toy while another tried to lure it from its hiding spot with calls of here kitty kitty. The trouble is i didnt have a cat and to everyones knowledge whom should know, no cat ever lived in the house, stray or otherwise. I personally had no sense of there being one here and simply let my guest believe as they wished. Then i agreed to dog sit two lovely little pooches which were eventually abandoned to me and later i adopted. Well if they didnt suddenly and without provocation, start racing down the front hall barking as if someone or something were there. In fact that is what they are doing now as i write this. Every time, at first, would get up and go investigate the commotion only to find them by the parlor door barking frantically at the empty space. When i would turn on the lights, open and close doors to show them every corner of the hall, cloak room and parlor, they would just stop barking a wonder off as if nothing had happened. But i began to think they were chasing a nonexistent cat. The son of one of my neighbours, volunteered to walk the dogs after school for which i am very grateful. It soon became routine for him to let himself in and collect the dogs as I would often be so immersed in my painting that i wouldnt notice the roof caving in. Then one day I heard him calling to me from the front hallway over the incessant barking of one of the dogs. When i went to him, he was standing almost frozen in the doorway while the dog was beside himself barking skyward at the top of the grandfather clock. Once i calmed the dog i turned to my young friend and half jokingly said i guess he finally cornered the cat on top of the clock. We both laughed as there was clearly no cat and off he went with the dogs. The joking half was for his benefit as i was no longer found the dogs antics funny. Since then i make it a habit of greeting him at the door, have removed all the doors to the rooms off the hallway and cordoned off the parlor with some yet to be filled canvases. There has been relative calm in the house ever since but occasionally, if i forget to replace the barricade to the parlor after being in it, the dogs will remind me when they go tearing after that nonexistent cat. The photo on the left is a view of my front hallway from the front door (kitchen in the background). The photo on the right is a view of the parlor door into the front hall (shameless plug but hanging on the wall beside the doorway is a self portrait).
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 20:34:12 +0000
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