Welcome to Terminus

Why Cats Sleep So Much

I once read in an old poem, this line about how if you gazed long enough into the eyes of a cat that you could tell what the exact time of day it was. So naturally enough I gave it a shot. My 'volunteer' was Don Ahmotep, Violet's lucky black cat who she discovered peeking out from the top drawer of a desk that had been abandoned in front of a cheap motel. I decided to conduct my experiment on a rainy afternoon, when I knew she would be out at work and I wouldn't be able to cheat by looking at where the sun was. Coast clear and cat napping in my lap, I plucked Ahmotep from the depths of his sphinx's dreams and carried him into the living room. With the alarm clock unplugged, I held him up under his arms just inches below the ceiling before peering into those crocodile yellow eyes of his.

At first I could only make out my own distorted reflection curved over those widening pupils of polished onyx. But then Ahmotep relaxed and stopped trying to squirm his way free from my grip, training his predator's stare steadily back upon my own.

Which was when I saw it.

The ghost.

In the cat's eyes I could suddenly make out that someone was standing there directly behind me. I assumed it was Violet, so I turned around to explain why I wasn't at work and instead engaging her cat in a impromptu staring contest.

But it wasn't Violet.

She was a little girl or a very old lady, hard to say, because remembering what a ghost looks like is like trying to remember the ethereal details of a passing dream. With eyes of incandescent diamonds burning, she stared up at me and straight into the terror swelling beneath the shock. Her mouth hung twisted and open into a petrified scream. A wisping green mist clung to her gray scalp. The rest of her... well the rest of her was simply not there.

I of course reacted like anyone would in my position. I calmly flung the cat the floating face before turning right around and bolting out the door.

When I came back a few hours and Jack's later, it was to a very irate Violet who wanted to know why exactly I left our apartment without so much as closing the front door behind her.

I had a more important question: "Is she still here?"

"Excuse me?" Violet asked, folding her arms over her fine valkyrie's chest in protest.

"The girl..."

"'The Girl?'"

"The ghost girl!"

"Oh, her... well she couldn't stick around but she left me a message to give you."

"Wh-, wait, what?"

"Yeah, she said, hold on let me see if I can remember this right... oh yeah, she said - 'Stop being such a dick, Jack... and
close the fucking door behind you when you leave.'"

"I'm being serious here."

"So am I, what if Ahmotep got out?"

"Did he?"

"No, he was asleep on the bed when I came in... oh, and why'd you unplug the clock?"

"You're not listening to me. We have a ghost."

"Of course we do."

"Honey..."

And so it went. Later, that night, while I was camped out on the couch and cock-blocked for the foreseeable future, silhouettes flitted around the corner of my vision. When I tried to focus on them they dispersed into stray shadows that left only a gnawing dread in their absence. I tried to drown my attention in a lukewarm television buzz but couldn't zone out due to the nagging sense that someone was sitting next to me.

Later Ahmotep skulked out into living room and only then did the phantasms cease their dance and the unexplained sense of another presence vanish. Ahmotep leaped into my lap and cascading his night black coat with a stream of pets, I apologized for my little 'experiment'.

"Now you know why we cats spend so much time sleeping..." He purred softly in my thoughts with a melodic and unfamiliar accent, "... because of the bad things only we can see when we're awake."

I nodded under this wisdom of this soft revelation before the last flicker of consciousness drifted deeply into slumber.

Welcome to Terminus