To the child’s right, my left, was a scruffy white kitty-cat—blurry, clearly not the subject of focus—and this cat was looking at something out of the frame (to the right and a little up) as it slunk across the floor.
Once when I was a kid, whatever age you are in about sixth grade, I saw this book in the library of my Catholic elementary school. It was a Dell paperback with black and white photos of all kinds of ghosts, and it had some really scary pictures—like that famous one of an upside-down, stretched-opened hand that appeared to be touching the glass from the other side of a TV that was unplugged; you can tell it is unplugged because you can see the cord right there in the picture.*
Even as a child I had a mind of reason, always searching for scientific explanations for everything. I had my doubts to its authenticity the entire time. It is hard not to wonder: why would one take a picture of an unplugged television set? There is no scientific explanation as to why one would do that. None. It seems stupid. So I doubted that it really was a ghost—although it also scared me at the time.**
But in the book I saw that day, one picture stood out as being particularly frightening: a seemingly innocent picture of a cute little baby. Taken from far away, snapped at a lazy angle (the horizontal line of the living-room carpet tilting up to the left) the picture was centered on the child, sitting on the carpet, smiling at the camera, presumably at one of his or her parents.
To the child’s right, my left, was a scruffy white kitty-cat—blurry, clearly not the subject of focus—and this cat was looking at something out of the frame (to the right and a little up) as it slunk across the floor.
But it wasn’t exactly slinking across the floor. In fact, it was slinking through the floor, its partially transparent paws sinking into the carpet up to its knees. And the baby’s looking right past it, like it doesn’t even notice the cat. Most babies love kitties. Scientifically, as far as I’m concerned, the baby would at least be kind of looking at the kitty, or its body language would read that it was aware of its presence. But no.
Unfortunately, I can’t find the book. I don’t even remember what it was called. I was a kid. I didn't think to write it down. I figured there were all kinds of books about ghost cats, about phenomena this fascinating. The book was on ghosts in general, so it’s not like I can search for it by looking up ghost cats as the subject. The only place that might still have it is my old middle school library, but I don't think they'd let me check it out. Since I can't find it, I no longer have any proof—it really was irrefutable evidence. If you saw it you would be freaked like I was. It’s so clear in my mind I even drew a sketch of it, included below.***
* * *
Every time I went to my grandma’s apartment, I expected to see ghost cats. I think because she had shag carpet kind of like the carpet in the photograph. I was obsessed with this picture. Every Thursday my class would have library period for forty minutes after lunch. We would walk down the hall, and I remember they always had the lights off, maybe because they were cheap at that school, so blue light was seeping in from outside, silhouetting our uniforms—ties and vests for the boys, brown and tan plaid skirts and vests for the girls. We moved mostly in silence except for the scuffs and squeaks of our shoes shuffling, each child with a finger on the wall as we were told, in order to keep us in line. Once in the library, girls would run off to their Where’s Waldo books and Chickadee magazines, boys to their Choose your Own Adventures and Junior Sports Illustrateds. Me, I would go to the third aisle, all the way to the end, to the small paranormal section, next to the shelf full of biographies of the lives of the saints. I’d open the book directly to the picture, its weathered and beaten paperback spine cracked right to that page. I didn’t even have the guts to check the book out: it was that frightening. I felt like it would be inviting the ghost cat into my home.
And after I stared at the cat’s legs sinking into the carpet, at the oblivious, happy child next to it, I’d wonder if there had been any ghost cats around me while I wasn’t even aware, perhaps when I was a child that same age, looking happily and trustingly at my parents while I had my picture taken. I’d feel a little bit scared for the rest of the day, even when I was outside watching the other boys play kickball and the girls play hopscotch, all talking about things with each other, even though I couldn’t see any ghost cats anywhere. But I always felt that maybe one might be around. And I would feel like maybe I was surrounded by who-knows-what-other-things that I couldn’t see. A lot of times I wished there was more to the things I could see, because I felt that what I was seeing was complete, and I wasn’t happy because I didn’t feel complete. I just figured it had something to do with how the light at that time of day was clear and blue, how the clouds were always shifting overhead, how the wind rustled things around, and how I was able to hear traffic far away. For whatever reason, those things made me a little bit sad sometimes.
* * *
There could be a scientific reason for the photograph: I have a friend whose aunt takes a million pictures of her cat. Her cat on the couch, on the floor, sleeping, sitting on something funny—there really are a lot of them. She’s had many cats that died in the same apartment, so why couldn’t she have maybe one time captured a ghost cat while taking a picture of the other cats? Like maybe the ghost cat wanted to play with the other cats that were living.
It never happened to her—I mean, as far as we know. She never caught it on film. It might have happened and we’ll never be certain. I think that’s how most of this stuff happens. I’ve accepted that. But it does seem to make scientific sense how a person could capture a ghost cat on film, perhaps because it was murdered, perhaps trapped in some routine, perhaps with unfinished business. I mean, that’s science. That’s how we explain the natural world.
Over the years, I looked for pictures of ghost cats whenever I found a new book on ghosts and aliens and unexplainable things. But I’ve never found one. Maybe because I never found another picture, this ghost cat fascination followed me into adulthood, ever slinking between my feet as I try to continue walking through my life.
* * *
I am deathly allergic to cats. Not so deathly allergic that I will die—the sneezing and teary eyes just make me feel like death sometimes. Obviously, my roommates and I do not keep cats in our apartment.
This one time I was in my apartment, using the lavatory. You can imagine my astonishment when I heard a door creak open and little kitten paws slink through the hall. I was alone. I started sneezing uncontrollably. I always sneeze in twos. And my eyes filled with tears. I have bad allergies around cats, and none of our neighbors have cats in our building either, and sometimes I have bad allergies in our apartment, so I got to thinking that the presence of ghost cats might answer a lot of questions.
About a week later, my roommate was cutting my hair on the back porch. Damp hair and cold air making the hairs on my neck stand up, her fingers prickling through the kinks in my hair as the scissors chirped relentlessly in my ears, I decided I needed to talk about this. I figured it best to raise the issue in the form of a non-committal question: “Do you think a person can be allergic to ghost cats?”
Because I was not exclusively thinking about my apartment; sometimes I get allergic in all kinds of places, like basements and playgrounds, even when there’s nothing there. Maybe there are ghost cats in these places, because it would make sense for there to be a lot of ghost cats out there if there are any ghost cats out there at all. All this time I was thinking I was allergic to mold or pollen, but what if it was really just ghost cats all along? What would that mean about our world? How many unseen forces govern even the minutia of our everyday lives without our ever knowing it? How “in control” are we after all?
She didn’t mean it in a mean way, she was just being a firecracker like she always is, but she told me I’m fucking stupid. So we talked about other things while she finished my haircut, because I felt stupid for a minute because she didn’t believe me and I wanted her to believe me, even though I really wasn’t sure I believed myself.
A lot of people don't seem to want to believe in ghost cats. Maybe they're too scared to even consider the possibility. I can respect that.
Because later I was talking to this other gal Frances about it. She's from the South, where everybody has seen ghosts or has a grandpa who saw or has known a ghost, and the culture is steeped in ghostlore, voodoo, and other alternative mysticisms. She says that cats can't have ghosts because they don't have souls. I tried to tell her that all living creatures have souls, if in fact any of us do. But she was really closed to the idea. It’s starting to make me think that maybe believing in ghost cats is just one of those Mars/Venus things.
So ever since I saw that picture I was convinced in ghost cats, and even though I haven’t seen it in years I don’t doubt how scary and real it looked, but I’m not sure I believe in ghost cats, although I really want to. Because I get scared sometimes, and it would be nice to say I was scared about something like ghost cats instead of just dying and there being nothing.
* I think it has since been disproved by ghost picture scholars. At the time, though, it was pretty revolutionary for what it meant to the field of paranormal research and reportage.
** Even today, I prefer not to nap by a turned-off TV, for fear that an outstretched hand will show up pushing against the dull gray reflective glass of the powerless screen on my outdated model. Regardless of the fact that the photo’s authenticity was questionable in the first place, it was still very horrifying. Really: what would you do if you were napping and then all of a sudden there was an outstretched hand pushing against the screen of a nearby turned-off television set? Your whole life would change. Your worldview would be forever altered. That’s a horrifying possibility I’d prefer to never experience. So if I nap by a turned-off television set, I fling my arm over my eyes, just in case.
*** The ghost cat:
Brandon Will is a former puppeteer (at a Detroit store-front theater) and moviemaker (of a ridiculously ambitious feature, Dadbot: The Movie). He currently works at a wonderful little independent bookstore and pursues a split-major in fiction writing and screenwriting at Columbia College Chicago while he writes things. In the future, he hopes to be a better man.
