Black Kitty Magic, Newsletter, 2020/05/25
There’s a wonderful story by Neil Gaiman of a black cat who battles the devil after dark, keeping his family safe. Busted up, broken and scarred, he never lets his guard down.
I’ve often thought cats were other-worldly.
Eight-pound killing machines that claw and scrabble their way into hearts. They can’t be tamed. We think we’ve tamed them, and then we find they’ve roamed elsewhere, with nary a backward twitch of the tale.
Witches have cats, or so the folklore goes. A familiar. A demon in the disguise of a feline. Not a dog or a rabbit or pot-bellied pig, but a cat. A slinky marauder. Their pupils designed to see in the dark, to see through the dark, to the nothing that’s supposedly there. A conduit between this world and the next.
Black cats, especially, are linked to the craft. Shadows that drift through villages, spying, watching, collecting information to report back to their owners. You won’t see a black cat until they brush past you, and even then, you can’t be sure it wasn’t a sudden breeze or your imagination.
Black cats are loaded with superstition. Don’t cross their paths. They bring bad luck. And if you meet one at night, they’re liable to trip you to your death.
I think black cats are magic.
Last year, after a particularly trying day of ICU hospital visits, I’d collapsed into my mother’s sofa, a non-alcoholic beer in hand, my intention firm to blitz through the latest season of The Crown. Two seconds later, my sister called me out into the road. Three black kittens howled and yowled from high up a tree opposite my mother’s house. The owner emerged--not his, he confirmed.
We coaxed them down, bundled them up, and harbored them in my father’s bedroom, now vacant while he lay in an ICU bed.
One was brazen and rolled over for affection within seconds. The second followed the lead of the first. And the third, the smallest, the teeniest tiniest little blob of fluff dashed under the bed and remained there.
My sister claimed two immediately. Meant to be. Fate. Destiny, and other such terms bandied about. But, three? One too many.
Fine, I relented, I’ll take the third. I didn’t need another cat. I had one, sulky and fabulous, and a squatter, determined and fabulous.
I didn’t know that lockdown loomed.
I didn’t know that I’d be alone in my home for weeks and weeks, with no seeming end.
I didn’t know that black cats—kittens—were magic.
I do now.
Neil Gaiman is right.
She no longer hides under the bed. Every night, and every day, my black kitten fights the demons that have shown up since lockdown—loneliness, despondency, and futility.
She’s my Anais. Merciful. Gracious. My familiar.
Keep well. Keep safe. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
I’ve often thought cats were other-worldly.
Eight-pound killing machines that claw and scrabble their way into hearts. They can’t be tamed. We think we’ve tamed them, and then we find they’ve roamed elsewhere, with nary a backward twitch of the tale.
Witches have cats, or so the folklore goes. A familiar. A demon in the disguise of a feline. Not a dog or a rabbit or pot-bellied pig, but a cat. A slinky marauder. Their pupils designed to see in the dark, to see through the dark, to the nothing that’s supposedly there. A conduit between this world and the next.
Black cats, especially, are linked to the craft. Shadows that drift through villages, spying, watching, collecting information to report back to their owners. You won’t see a black cat until they brush past you, and even then, you can’t be sure it wasn’t a sudden breeze or your imagination.
Black cats are loaded with superstition. Don’t cross their paths. They bring bad luck. And if you meet one at night, they’re liable to trip you to your death.
I think black cats are magic.
Last year, after a particularly trying day of ICU hospital visits, I’d collapsed into my mother’s sofa, a non-alcoholic beer in hand, my intention firm to blitz through the latest season of The Crown. Two seconds later, my sister called me out into the road. Three black kittens howled and yowled from high up a tree opposite my mother’s house. The owner emerged--not his, he confirmed.
We coaxed them down, bundled them up, and harbored them in my father’s bedroom, now vacant while he lay in an ICU bed.
One was brazen and rolled over for affection within seconds. The second followed the lead of the first. And the third, the smallest, the teeniest tiniest little blob of fluff dashed under the bed and remained there.
My sister claimed two immediately. Meant to be. Fate. Destiny, and other such terms bandied about. But, three? One too many.
Fine, I relented, I’ll take the third. I didn’t need another cat. I had one, sulky and fabulous, and a squatter, determined and fabulous.
I didn’t know that lockdown loomed.
I didn’t know that I’d be alone in my home for weeks and weeks, with no seeming end.
I didn’t know that black cats—kittens—were magic.
I do now.
Neil Gaiman is right.
She no longer hides under the bed. Every night, and every day, my black kitten fights the demons that have shown up since lockdown—loneliness, despondency, and futility.
She’s my Anais. Merciful. Gracious. My familiar.
Keep well. Keep safe. Don’t let the bastards get you down.