She Sees Through the Night

The unknown pull from outside is too strong to break my stare out my new panoramic living room window. My window was finally installed this week after numerous complications of blending it flawlessly into this old house. Now the window looks out over a drab, burned field outside my home in a rural region of my hometown. Tonight, it frames a portrait of vast darkness outside that I've been taking the time to watch the last few nights without outdoor light or indoor curtain. This personal exercise of sitting and staring out into a dark void began when I took in a stray female black cat last night.

A seemingly gentle female feline, she sits and watches something active through the window starting about midnight each night.

This wouldn't concern me if it not that I live out in the middle of nowhere and twenty miles from anything resembling law enforcement. But the cat only noticed an active unknown out there as soon as my outdoor light went out. This happened three nights ago due to an aging light fixture I've never bothered to upgrade.

For the record: I've always scoffed at the idea of black cats being an omen for anything dramatic or unfortunate. Now I'm weighing going back to my old belief.

It looks like she's seeing something out there--something through the night.

This isn't just one thing the black cat is seeing; it's numerous. Whatever it is she's seeing, it's out there right now and becoming much more active than it was prior. Three nights ago, she saw only two unknowns out in that field lining my gravel driveway. The back and forth of the cat's head gave me impressions that two people were out there jousting with one another, violently. I noticed the cat's reactions just when I was ready to pull my new, thick curtain shut for the night.

I tried to see through the darkness she was seeing through. But my eyes just aren't adjusted for such a thing. With this cursory nighttime eyesight test, I was assured she wasn't seeing two human beings out there battling to the death. Yet whatever it was that won the fight started heading toward the house.

The cat's eyes followed this unknown before it disappeared out of eyeshot. It was a symbolic gesture of all being well for one night.

Two nights prior, the black cat appeared to be seeing more than two unknowns out in the field. This time, it appeared to be an out-and-out brawl. If cats cared about watching fast-paced tennis matches, then this cat's head would move accordingly in the same rotating directions. After the apparent fight was over, several of the unknowns were ambling toward the house, according to the cat's reactions.

Again, the unknowns vanished. Nevertheless, they were likely to see our silhouettes from afar, watching them through the window. This was because of a tall, nine-foot, antique floor lamp illuminating the room behind both of us.

Of course, I had to wonder if the cat was merely reacting to nighttime insects flying or writhing around outside the window. I attempted to confirm this by crouching down beside her last night and trying to prove a nightly assortment of moths, gnats or even bats outside were to blame. I saw nothing other than the reality the cat was looking out into long distance--right into the same field that I suspected.

She turned toward me for a few seconds. Her glowing, liquid green eyes displayed no sign of any fear at whatever she was seeing. A quiet half-murmur/mew from her was an assumed attempted way of telling me that I should understand what she was seeing and why I wasn't supposed to.

Nevertheless, it was obvious as of midnight last night: This cat was seeing something strange in the spiritual realm. I'd heard rumors that cats could see such things due to the special structure of their eyes.

I want to see what she's seeing tonight. Right now, she's seeing many of them. It's an all-out fight out there; a possible spiritual battle of the benevolent and malevolent. Whoever wins tonight is going to be stepping through the dark void and infiltrating my house to do something I can't even comprehend.

I know it and feel it.

_____

The window now frames something perhaps no other living creature can see. Yet I can still envision other nature with night vision seeing the unknowns fighting violently in the middle of the thick darkness. I can picture any other animal running for their life at the mere sight of it from a distance.

All the spiritual violence out there fascinates this cat, if even giving a strange sense of physical and mental invigoration as a nighttime catfight possibly would. Now she's jumping up on top of a table near the window to get a higher-angled and more commanding view at what's happening out there. She looks tense; her eyes are widening a few centimeters.

It's beyond any previous intensity level now. Whatever side previously adamant in wanting to win is more than victorious this time. The cat's line of sight is shifting all directions, indicating violent outcomes and beings scattering. But there's a clear indication the group that won is an angry mob moving toward the house with an increasing pace.

The parameter that was previously comfortable for the cat has now been breached. The unknowns outside apparently passed this line, because the cat's head appears to be jutting forward with concern over a large mob standing outside within feet of my front door. It's enough for the cat to leap off the table and hide under my black divan sofa on the other side of the room. Her chosen domain under the sofa seems intelligently intentional to camouflage her into the dark surroundings.

Whatever these things are outside, they're apparently waiting for me to come to them. They seem to know I'm within mere feet of being able to turn a doorknob and interact in the same world.

They aren't waiting for that. The whole house is throbbing in the guise of a deep, rolling earthquake. A loud pound on the mahogany front door sounds more akin to a fist the size of a ten-ton boulder, creating a quick and massive bulge in the antique door's surface. This just happened despite having three dead bolt locks installed to guard against the most powerful break-in device.

The lights went out. The front door is about to be destroyed and I'll be standing here, too numb to move anywhere and not knowing how to answer to something this powerful.

My old fears of being caught in pitch-black darkness are all coming back.

The door is splitting to pieces. Now the house is starting to crumble apart around me while an intense gust of wind rushes through each opening around the living room. The wind feels like it's going to pick me up and carry me to some hellish lair.

I see several faint shadows standing a foot away from me, perhaps seven to eight feet tall. One has a hulk-like arm extended that's intent on grabbing me by the throat.

I see a strong ray of light, however, beaming through an opening in my roof. An intense flash just blinded me and engulfed my entire lot.

The shadows are screaming at high pitch.

I'm disoriented…

______

I'm awake. It looks like half an hour just passed since I saw the flash. Everything's eerily quiet and serene now. My house, though, is a shambles after that nefarious force I saw infiltrated it and tore it apart. As for me, I'm lying on the floor amid a pile of my furniture, papers and other assorted junk that went flying everywhere when the house rattled to pieces.

Right above me is a wider opening in my roof that ripped open during the chaos. Through the opening is the night sky, clear and full of stars.

I've never really felt so peaceful.

And right beside me is the black cat emanating a deep purr. She managed to somehow stay safe in her hiding spot through all the earlier disruption. Now she's nestled up beside me, an affirmation that I'm her official keeper from now on.

She also broke the stigma for her entire species. I won't blame her for being the symbol of bringing a strange, malevolent force here to hijack my home. I won't even give her credit for bringing a more powerful benevolent force that threw the malevolent force out of here.

Now as we stay here peering up into a serene nighttime sky, I'm giving her credit for helping me see through this night. What's out there is more than I ever thought--even if it co-exists with a vulnerable evil that's adamant on destroying an equally vulnerable soul.