The Cat Moriah For the longest time, I thought she was a ghost, but I ~Charles de Lint, Memory and Dream, "Tallulah"
Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance
Homeless Wanderer
know what she is now. She's come to mean everything
to me; like a lifeline, she keeps me connected to reality, to
this place and this time, by her very capriciousness...
When the gris-gris of memories that hold her stir in my
mind, she guides me through the city's night...
Everything familiar is
changed; what she shows me goes under the skin, right to the
marrow of the bone...
I know her now. She's like a rosebush grown old, gone
wild; untrimmed, neglected for years, the thorns become
sharper, more bitter; her foliage spreading, grown out of
control, reaching high and wide, while the center chokes and
dies. The blossoms that remain are just small now, hidden in
the wild growth, memories of what they once were.
I know her now. She's the spirit that connects the notes of
a tune ~ the silences between the sounds; the resonance
that lies under the lines I put down on a page. Not a ghost,
but a spirit all the same: the city's heart and soul.
I don't wonder about her origin. I don't wonder whether
she was here first, and the city grew around her, or if the city
created her. She just is.
The payments owed her were long overdue, but we no
longer have the necessary coin to settle our accounts with
her. So she changes, just as we change.
Not all change is for the good.
She's all around me, but I can't find her. I'm sure I'd
recognize her ~
I don't want you to see what I will become.
~ but I can't be sure. The city can be so many things. It's
a place where the familiar can become strange with just the
blink of an eye. And if I saw her ~
You wouldn't recognize me and I wouldn't want you to.
~what would I do? I don't think I would recognize her;
I don't think I would want to.
That's why I have to go.
Sometimes I wish I'd never met her.