The muse hit oddly last night at 3 am. I woke suddenly from a deep and sound sleep, turned my head and saw a HUGE (double the size of Cujo, my biggest cat) black cat staring at me, standing on the edge of my bed. It was big and black and it stared right at me. So I screamed. And the cat turned, jumped down and ran downstairs- at which point I was able to recognize from the sound of the patter of paws that it was Sorcha. Cujo heard me scream and came running to investigate-he is my self-appointed guardian, after all. Sorcha heard him come upstairs and crept back, jumping up next to me. I turned to the new clock radio and it was exactly 3:00 am.
In my disoriented state, the first thing I thought was "Puca!" The puca is a spirit, a shapeshifter that takes the form of an animal like a horse, a rabbit, or a cat. Usually it's a benign being that interacts with humans in different ways, mostly mischievous or annoying, but sometimes the puca warns of danger or guides a human away from danger. It is less of an omen than the Ban Sidhe, but some consider it malevolent.
Once my rapid heartbeat decelerated, and the two kitties settled in to sandwich me, I realized what had happened. Sorcha usually jumps up on the bed on my left side, but on this occasion she jumped up to my right. My new clock radio (which plays my iPod and allows me two alarms, one for work and one for other times) has a time display that is very, very bright. My old one had red lit numbers that glowed dimly. This one lights the entire room, which I dislike; I like my room very dark and never had a nightlight. It is set on dim- the brighter display is at bright as my lamp to me. When the sudden movement to the unaccustomed right side occurred, I opened up my eyes. With the bright light of the clock turned away from my direct view, Sorcha appeared larger as a shadow, and her tortoise fur appeared jet black. As a shadowed shape looming next to me (add in lack of eyeglasses contributing to vision distortion), her outline appeared totally unfamiliar, causing my reaction. Additionally, she usually vocalizes when I look at her (and she has a huge range of vocalization), and on this occasion she did not.
So my scientific analysis of the situation tells me that I simply mistook my own cat for a mythical creature in the wee hours. The inner Celt in me wonders if the puca acted through my cat to alert or warn me of some impending disaster. (Celts are always waiting for impending disaster- it's how we are hard-wired.)
Bottom line- note to self: find some kind of film to cover that damn alarm clock.
My personal puca is again competing for First Laptop position.
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