Spirits in the Material World

So the day after my cat Nessie died, my other cat, Jute, started freaking out. He wasn't especially chummy with Nessie to begin with - I mean, they beat each other up and played around, but I always got the feeling it was more of a tolerance thing. They were always doing battle for space on my lap, and it usually wound up being Nessie, the 7 pounder, on my chest while Jute, the 15 pounder, took up residence on my lap.

Anyway, that whole first night without Nessie, Jute curled up on the corner of my bed, one eye on the slightly ajar door all night. Well, as far as I could tell. When I got up in the morning, he stood on the edge of the bed and puffed up, Halloween style, and hissed, slowly backing up towards me and eventually trying to hide behind my head. This went on for a good ten minutes or so till I got him calmed down.

In the week that has passed, he's had more moments of kitty freakout like that, but I've also thought that I've seen Nessie - only for a second, out of the corner of my eye. Who knows? I grew up watching stuff like In Search of (the Leonard Nimoy version in the 70's) and still dork out with the X-Files, so I guess you could call me "a believer." My family has all sorts of stories about dead relatives coming for a visit and apartments with strange-goings-on and the like, so who's to say my kitty isn't cruising around? As long as she doesn't pee in the entry way corner like she did when she was alive, I'm totally okay with it.