I'm in the mood to write simply because you're near me. The keyboard, that is. Wish this chair was more comfortable though. It's one of those wooden fold-outs circa whatever year fold-out chairs were invented. It came with the house and is the only thing that fits into the space allotted for our computer which is itself confined to the area by virtue - actually it is not a virtue - of the cable connector's location. I'm sitting on a pillow which helps some, but my back is pretty rigidly held upright and I can feel each of the two horizontal slats press against my spine if I lean back. Hey, life is tough and then you go on living. Now that you are all sympathetic to my plight,"Poor Zendoc" I hear you saying, I'll get on with the writing knowing you'll make allowances for my failure to be remotely good at it, should that be the case.
I do love to ramble.
Here's a line I have stolen from "The Big Bang Theory" which I tuned into thinking it was going to be about a potential orgy. Okay, that's a stretch, but you see Bang is a euphemism for...nevermind, here's the line: Women. Can't live with them, can't successfully refute their hypotheses.
That's funny.
And here's the first line of a poem I'm going to write if I ever think of a second line: Your body is the instrument I play, but it is not the song.
My thoughts on E Books: Love 'em. I don't mind that they will someday replace real books, but I will miss the old version in the same way I miss lying in the dark listening to old time radio dramas. It's more about nostalgia than reality. I mean, it's the writing, not the container that is important.
And speaking of writing, here's a thought I had on that subject. Pay attention now because I only have two thoughts a day and the first is usually along the lines of "you better get up now" so the second must be significant. Readers find that reading is easy so they think that for writers writing is easy. It's not.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The Witch's Cat
An old tale recently discovered that I wrote many years ago. I have revised it only slightly.
Last night, Kephart and I, four beers in and feeling conversational, began with the premise of Peter Straub’s book, “Ghost Story.” “Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done” says one of the book’s protagonists. “I won’t tell you that” says another, “but I will tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me.” For those who have not read the book “the worst ever done” and “worst ever happened” are intrinsically linked.
Those two protagonists, along with three others, had in common “the worst thing they had ever done” and were thus able to fix on their now wakened nightmare. Kephart and I, though long friends, shared no dastardly deeds worth mentioning, so we started with another beer and the worst thing we had ever done individually. His went as follows and I have dubbed the tale...
THE WITCH'S CAT
When I was young, say ten or eleven, I lived in a rural town in southern Missouri. Like most unchanged for a hundred years town, ours had its share of local superstition. One of these concerned a woman who lived atop the highest hill in our community and was seldom seen by the townsfolk. Her house was not isolated or in any unnatural way particularly spooky. It was in fact flanked by other houses, but it was rundown and the vegetation in the yard had grown so high as to obscure even the traditional swing on the porch from the view of passersby. Among the town’s children and a goodly number of grown folks as well, Mrs…and here the name eludes me, but I remember it vaguely as something Balkan or, perhaps, Rumanian that sounded mysterious to my young ears…Drago or Dragovich, something like that…was generally considered to be a witch. Though she was seldom seen, her one cat of the large, black and tom variety, was much in evidence and was the scourge of the neighborhood. Its single and most terrible act was to father kittens by every available female and then to seek them out in the dead of night and kill them all, sometimes killing the mother as well. It was rumored the cat ate parts of its kills, though I doubt this to be true. I do know for certain that he had murdered a litter of my cat’s and now, some six months later, my cat had given birth to another batch and I was determined to keep them alive.
Talk, tears and tantrums persuaded my father to sit up the first night, Louisville Slugger in hand, to await what I now called The Witch’s Cat. Lest my dad should drift off, I bedded down on the living room sofa directly under the window that looked out onto the porch where my father presided over the kitten’s protection. I awoke shortly after midnight as people sometimes will when events are about to occur though no noise or change in the air alarms them. Through the window I watched as the Witch’s Cat pushed a tear in the porch screen aside and made its way soundlessly and menacingly toward my kittens. I tapped the glass to alert my dad, but he was already awake and one jump ahead of me. It took him but a few seconds to make a nasty mess of our formerly farm neat front porch. The lesson I learned that night was simple, but disappointing: a grown man armed with a baseball bat can wreck havoc with a porch swing, window, screen door and assorted fold out chairs, but he can’t hit a frightened cat!
Now you would assume the tale would end here. I was, after all, the next victim of my father’s ire, (“This is your fault Son, and you are going to clean up this mess!”) and The Witch’s Cat must certainly have learned a lesson as well. I was, however - not unexpectedly I suppose for a little kid being raised southern Baptist - even more aflame with what seemed a righteous calling. The Witch’s Cat was clearly sent from the Devil and I knew it was up to me to stop it. While peering bug-eyed through the window glass on that dreadful night, I know I had seen the cat’s eyes glow with the fires of hell as it made its escape through the torn screen. It seemed almost leisurely, in fact, in its departure; and the worst thing, the thing I remembered for years later, was that it looked straight at me and I mean straight at my eyes, and it felt as though it was trying to reach inside and tell me something awful.
For the next few nights we kept the kittens inside, but it was summer and often one window or another was kept open to catch the evening breeze. I did not sleep well during that period. During the day I spent hours trying to think of ways to rid the town of our feline menace and it was a chance conversation with a friend named Bobby that gave me the idea. Bobby pointed out that in the movies witches and the like were always burned. I determined then that fire was the answer and came up with what I thought to be the final solution. It was a simple plan and it had only two parts. Its simplicity, I thought, had to mean success.
Here I have to tell you that my house was a typical farm house with acres of flat land surrounding it. Once outdoors you could walk a hundred yards in any direction without reaching real cover. Now cats are fast, they can dart and turn quicker than a human being, but on the straight most boys can outrun them. It was my plan to load a bug sprayer – you know the kind, a long tube with a pump handle at the end and a little fuel tank hanging down near the front – and have Bobby close behind with a box of Diamond kitchen matches at the ready. Once soaked, a timely match would immolate our evil adversary to the tune of burn witch burn or some such ten year old’s chant. To a degree the plan was a good one. We actually caught the fiend out hunting on the very first night which was fortunate because Bobby couldn’t sneak out as easily as me and frankly wasn’t as hot about the whole thing as I was. He wasn’t prepared to deal with his parents anger should they find out. I had set the nozzle of the sprayer to give a wide shower and when I leapt into action I was able to get enough juice on the beast that it flattened its fur and made it look as if it had just come from a swim. The problem was that Bobby couldn’t get a lit match to hit it. A couple came close and a couple of just gone outs actually bounced off it, but none produced the result we wanted, namely one smoked cat. Once again I had been foiled from saving my kittens and, I was sure, the whole town from a witch. Weren’t cats, after all, the source of a witch’s power? Yet my determination grew accordingly. I would get that cat no matter what.
The following night, Bobby reluctantly in tow, we set out for the witch’s house. There was no moon as I remember, and the deep black of the darkness made me think this was the bravest and most noble thing I had ever done. I was filled with the righteousness of my Baptist upbringing and was certain that Galahad and Lancelot and all the knights had no greater quest. I only wish now that the end of my tale could match the heroics I felt then, but it was not to be.
As we approached the house from the sloping hillside of its backyard, we passed the stacked rock circle of a working well. It had a bucket, a pulley and a serviceable rope. I dropped a stone to check its depth and a couple of seconds elapsed before I heard a splash. The well was plenty deep. I decided then that this was going to be the final resting place of The Witch’s Cat.
An hour or so passed as we searched the grounds and Bobby was getting nervous about sneaking home undetected. I too, was nearing the end of my resolve, but there was one area left on the property we had not checked. Near a stairwell leading to the witch’s basement was a sort of tool shed or storage shack. It wasn’t very large and probably hadn’t been used for some time as its door lay askew hung by one remaining hinge. We crept quietly as we could to the entrance and peered in. Both of us had burlap sacks that we carried in front of us like bull fighter’s capes. Our hope was to throw them over The Witch’s Cat as fishermen cast their nets over fish. Crouching low, shoulder to shoulder, sacks also serving as shields, we entered the shed. Inside we stopped for a moment to allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. As the room grew lighter we heard a small mewing sound and when we followed the noise to its origin we discovered four small kittens in a cardboard box. It was at that moment that my heart turned from righteous avenging angel to frustrated, black soul, little boy with the ethics of a lynch mob. I scooped the kittens up into my sack, proclaiming them devil cats to Bobby, and ran to the well. With not even a momentary pause of conscience, I upended my sack over the abyss and dumped the kittens into it. Far below I heard them splash and, grinning, I turned to Bobby who had just arrived at my side. When I saw the look of horror in his eyes, I instantly realized what I had done. My God, I thought, I have to save them! I turned quickly and began to lower the bucket into the well. I could hear the kittens mewing and screaming and I knew they could not last long. “Damn, damn, damn!” I said as I lowered the bucket as fast as possible. When it touched bottom, I bobbed it a few times hoping I could feel the weight change. There were no sounds at all now but the slight echo of the bucket tapping the surface of the water. Suddenly I realized the weight did feel heavier. “Bobby” I cried, “help me” and together we pulled the counter rope down as fast as we could, all the while staring into the well. When the bucket reached some five or six feet from the edge we could see its contents and we both stopped, frozen by what it held. There were the kittens of course, but looming over them was The Witch’s Cat, its eyes glowing menacingly and seemingly fixed on our own. Our hands went limp and the bucket crashed to the bottom of the well. The last thing I remember clearly was Bobby still standing there with his face twisted in fear. I suppose I ran then. I suppose I screamed, but I’m not really sure. My memory stops at the moment The Witch’s Cat fixed its evil gaze on my terrified eyes. What I am sure of is that it took until this day, this moment to finally tell the story. And, I am also sure, sure as the next beer, that sleep and the Witch’s Cat that haunts it, won’t find me tonight.
We drank that last beer quietly, then went our separate ways. I wasn’t about to try topping that story with tales of frog torture or any of the other small nasty things I had done as a boy. Not that night anyway. But as imagination is more frequently my companion than reality, I will await another day…because, of course, there is that bog behind my house. You can reach it by traveling what was once a well worn path. It was said that hundreds of years ago…
Doc Walton, Nineteen Eighty Something or Other
Last night, Kephart and I, four beers in and feeling conversational, began with the premise of Peter Straub’s book, “Ghost Story.” “Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done” says one of the book’s protagonists. “I won’t tell you that” says another, “but I will tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me.” For those who have not read the book “the worst ever done” and “worst ever happened” are intrinsically linked.
Those two protagonists, along with three others, had in common “the worst thing they had ever done” and were thus able to fix on their now wakened nightmare. Kephart and I, though long friends, shared no dastardly deeds worth mentioning, so we started with another beer and the worst thing we had ever done individually. His went as follows and I have dubbed the tale...
THE WITCH'S CAT
When I was young, say ten or eleven, I lived in a rural town in southern Missouri. Like most unchanged for a hundred years town, ours had its share of local superstition. One of these concerned a woman who lived atop the highest hill in our community and was seldom seen by the townsfolk. Her house was not isolated or in any unnatural way particularly spooky. It was in fact flanked by other houses, but it was rundown and the vegetation in the yard had grown so high as to obscure even the traditional swing on the porch from the view of passersby. Among the town’s children and a goodly number of grown folks as well, Mrs…and here the name eludes me, but I remember it vaguely as something Balkan or, perhaps, Rumanian that sounded mysterious to my young ears…Drago or Dragovich, something like that…was generally considered to be a witch. Though she was seldom seen, her one cat of the large, black and tom variety, was much in evidence and was the scourge of the neighborhood. Its single and most terrible act was to father kittens by every available female and then to seek them out in the dead of night and kill them all, sometimes killing the mother as well. It was rumored the cat ate parts of its kills, though I doubt this to be true. I do know for certain that he had murdered a litter of my cat’s and now, some six months later, my cat had given birth to another batch and I was determined to keep them alive.
Talk, tears and tantrums persuaded my father to sit up the first night, Louisville Slugger in hand, to await what I now called The Witch’s Cat. Lest my dad should drift off, I bedded down on the living room sofa directly under the window that looked out onto the porch where my father presided over the kitten’s protection. I awoke shortly after midnight as people sometimes will when events are about to occur though no noise or change in the air alarms them. Through the window I watched as the Witch’s Cat pushed a tear in the porch screen aside and made its way soundlessly and menacingly toward my kittens. I tapped the glass to alert my dad, but he was already awake and one jump ahead of me. It took him but a few seconds to make a nasty mess of our formerly farm neat front porch. The lesson I learned that night was simple, but disappointing: a grown man armed with a baseball bat can wreck havoc with a porch swing, window, screen door and assorted fold out chairs, but he can’t hit a frightened cat!
Now you would assume the tale would end here. I was, after all, the next victim of my father’s ire, (“This is your fault Son, and you are going to clean up this mess!”) and The Witch’s Cat must certainly have learned a lesson as well. I was, however - not unexpectedly I suppose for a little kid being raised southern Baptist - even more aflame with what seemed a righteous calling. The Witch’s Cat was clearly sent from the Devil and I knew it was up to me to stop it. While peering bug-eyed through the window glass on that dreadful night, I know I had seen the cat’s eyes glow with the fires of hell as it made its escape through the torn screen. It seemed almost leisurely, in fact, in its departure; and the worst thing, the thing I remembered for years later, was that it looked straight at me and I mean straight at my eyes, and it felt as though it was trying to reach inside and tell me something awful.
For the next few nights we kept the kittens inside, but it was summer and often one window or another was kept open to catch the evening breeze. I did not sleep well during that period. During the day I spent hours trying to think of ways to rid the town of our feline menace and it was a chance conversation with a friend named Bobby that gave me the idea. Bobby pointed out that in the movies witches and the like were always burned. I determined then that fire was the answer and came up with what I thought to be the final solution. It was a simple plan and it had only two parts. Its simplicity, I thought, had to mean success.
Here I have to tell you that my house was a typical farm house with acres of flat land surrounding it. Once outdoors you could walk a hundred yards in any direction without reaching real cover. Now cats are fast, they can dart and turn quicker than a human being, but on the straight most boys can outrun them. It was my plan to load a bug sprayer – you know the kind, a long tube with a pump handle at the end and a little fuel tank hanging down near the front – and have Bobby close behind with a box of Diamond kitchen matches at the ready. Once soaked, a timely match would immolate our evil adversary to the tune of burn witch burn or some such ten year old’s chant. To a degree the plan was a good one. We actually caught the fiend out hunting on the very first night which was fortunate because Bobby couldn’t sneak out as easily as me and frankly wasn’t as hot about the whole thing as I was. He wasn’t prepared to deal with his parents anger should they find out. I had set the nozzle of the sprayer to give a wide shower and when I leapt into action I was able to get enough juice on the beast that it flattened its fur and made it look as if it had just come from a swim. The problem was that Bobby couldn’t get a lit match to hit it. A couple came close and a couple of just gone outs actually bounced off it, but none produced the result we wanted, namely one smoked cat. Once again I had been foiled from saving my kittens and, I was sure, the whole town from a witch. Weren’t cats, after all, the source of a witch’s power? Yet my determination grew accordingly. I would get that cat no matter what.
The following night, Bobby reluctantly in tow, we set out for the witch’s house. There was no moon as I remember, and the deep black of the darkness made me think this was the bravest and most noble thing I had ever done. I was filled with the righteousness of my Baptist upbringing and was certain that Galahad and Lancelot and all the knights had no greater quest. I only wish now that the end of my tale could match the heroics I felt then, but it was not to be.
As we approached the house from the sloping hillside of its backyard, we passed the stacked rock circle of a working well. It had a bucket, a pulley and a serviceable rope. I dropped a stone to check its depth and a couple of seconds elapsed before I heard a splash. The well was plenty deep. I decided then that this was going to be the final resting place of The Witch’s Cat.
An hour or so passed as we searched the grounds and Bobby was getting nervous about sneaking home undetected. I too, was nearing the end of my resolve, but there was one area left on the property we had not checked. Near a stairwell leading to the witch’s basement was a sort of tool shed or storage shack. It wasn’t very large and probably hadn’t been used for some time as its door lay askew hung by one remaining hinge. We crept quietly as we could to the entrance and peered in. Both of us had burlap sacks that we carried in front of us like bull fighter’s capes. Our hope was to throw them over The Witch’s Cat as fishermen cast their nets over fish. Crouching low, shoulder to shoulder, sacks also serving as shields, we entered the shed. Inside we stopped for a moment to allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. As the room grew lighter we heard a small mewing sound and when we followed the noise to its origin we discovered four small kittens in a cardboard box. It was at that moment that my heart turned from righteous avenging angel to frustrated, black soul, little boy with the ethics of a lynch mob. I scooped the kittens up into my sack, proclaiming them devil cats to Bobby, and ran to the well. With not even a momentary pause of conscience, I upended my sack over the abyss and dumped the kittens into it. Far below I heard them splash and, grinning, I turned to Bobby who had just arrived at my side. When I saw the look of horror in his eyes, I instantly realized what I had done. My God, I thought, I have to save them! I turned quickly and began to lower the bucket into the well. I could hear the kittens mewing and screaming and I knew they could not last long. “Damn, damn, damn!” I said as I lowered the bucket as fast as possible. When it touched bottom, I bobbed it a few times hoping I could feel the weight change. There were no sounds at all now but the slight echo of the bucket tapping the surface of the water. Suddenly I realized the weight did feel heavier. “Bobby” I cried, “help me” and together we pulled the counter rope down as fast as we could, all the while staring into the well. When the bucket reached some five or six feet from the edge we could see its contents and we both stopped, frozen by what it held. There were the kittens of course, but looming over them was The Witch’s Cat, its eyes glowing menacingly and seemingly fixed on our own. Our hands went limp and the bucket crashed to the bottom of the well. The last thing I remember clearly was Bobby still standing there with his face twisted in fear. I suppose I ran then. I suppose I screamed, but I’m not really sure. My memory stops at the moment The Witch’s Cat fixed its evil gaze on my terrified eyes. What I am sure of is that it took until this day, this moment to finally tell the story. And, I am also sure, sure as the next beer, that sleep and the Witch’s Cat that haunts it, won’t find me tonight.
We drank that last beer quietly, then went our separate ways. I wasn’t about to try topping that story with tales of frog torture or any of the other small nasty things I had done as a boy. Not that night anyway. But as imagination is more frequently my companion than reality, I will await another day…because, of course, there is that bog behind my house. You can reach it by traveling what was once a well worn path. It was said that hundreds of years ago…
Doc Walton, Nineteen Eighty Something or Other
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