Ghost Cat, Is That You?

Living with cats can often feel like living with ghosts, especially when they learn to open doors. It used to be unsettling to look across the apartment and see a door seemingly open and close by itself, but now it's just like living out the second half of a movie about the Invisible Man and his roommate. I have come to terms with my unusual circumstances, and we have a routine now.

Our apartment is on the second floor of a small house in Bay View on the south side of Milwaukee. Sometimes I hear foot steps on the stairs that lead up to our flat, but when no one materializes at the top of the stairs I realize that,Hegel, named for the 18th century German philosopher, or Murs, named for the twenty-first century gangsta rapper, have had one over on me again. Not that they have any idea what kind of Ghostbusters/Ghost Dad scenarios they create. They only know that they have no yard to run in or wild creatures to hunt. So they hunt each other around our one bedroom apartment, occasionally bumping into a coffee mug or candlestick. When I look to see who is there, all that remains is the spinning cup or a toppled ornament and a spire of smoke. Almost as if some paranormal prankster were trying to make me think I was hallucinating.

"But I'm telling you, officer, someone is lurking around in my home causing all kinds of ruckus. The individual is either incredibly sneaky or returned from the dead to conclude the unfinished business of scaring the begeesus out of me. You don't happen to know if an assistant professor of Art History, overcome with grief over repeated career disappointments, committed suicide in this apartment, because this spook seems to hate my sister-in-law's Pop Art. The same painting has fallen of the wall six times this week. I'm afraid my she is going to notice the wood glue bubbles oozing out of the cracked frame next time she comes over for dinner."

Still, even when I cannot see my feline roommates it is nice to be reminded of their presence by a constant thumping of books being knocked off the book shelf, the scattering of our mail all over the dinner table and surrounding floor or a cry like the restless spirit of an unwanted child thrown off a bridge many years ago.