The Euphrates House

    There is an empty house across the street from my home. Empty but not abandoned. Not exactly. There are never any vehicles parked in the driveway. And there are never any lights in the windows. The yard is mowed just often enough to prevent the city from issuing a citation, but I’ve never seen anyone pushing a mower. The porch is collapsed and a few windows are broken, but it’s not condemned.

    I’ve been curious about the place since I moved in here about four years ago. I’ve never seen any yard decorations. No Christmas lights. I never hear music from the place. Never hear laughing squealing children. There’s no dog crap in the yard, so I don’t think there are any pets. The stray cats that congregate under the collapsed porch can’t count as pets.

    I’ve been curious so today I decided to investigate. I don’t know why the urge came over me… I walked up and down the sidewalk staring up at the house, seeing the places where the siding’s come loose and started to fall away, seeing the seedlings growing in the gutters, seeing the falling soffits. From the sidewalk I could see a single set of human footprints in the snow (unshoveled from the walk and driveway…) led to the front door and, presumably, entered the house. No prints exited or led away from the house. At least not from the font door. So I walked around the corner and back up to the house through the alleyway behind the house. No footprints at the back door either. Just a small mound of snow covered, discarded appliances.

    Call me a snoop. Call me a sneak. You’re probably right.

    I went back around to the front of the house, steeled up my nerve, and approached the house. Climbing carefully over the collapsed porch, I stood at the door and knocked. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” The words of scripture came inappropriately to mind and I chuckled. I knocked again. But there was no answer. After waiting a few minutes and watching cars drive up and down the street, I knocked on the door once more.

    The front door sagged on its hinges and collapsed inward. The topmost hinge pulled away from the frame and fell downward. It then swung open, limping on the bottom hinge.

    “Hello?” I called into the house. “Um.. I’m sorry about your door.” I could hear my voice echoing around inside the empty, silent house. “Hello?” I stepped inside and called out again. “I knocked and your door... it sorta collapsed.”

    The air inside the house was warm (but I couldn’t hear any noise from a furnace) and had the antiseptic, phenol smell of old time Bandaids. I took another step into the house. Call me a snoop. Call me a sneak. You can add trespasser too, I guess. Just then a jump-scare cat yowled and leaped down from somewhere unseen and I nearly screamed. The cat ran past me and out the door.

    Fully inside now I could hear something new – the sound of running water. From the basement, perhaps. A slow churning. Ancient and deep. A border, a boundary dividing order from chaos and life from death. The power of water is untamed. Hard. Strong. Rivers and dragons. “Sounds like someone’s left the bath running,” I called out, but there was no answer.

    I turned back to the door and swung it back towards closed. Broken as it was, it didn’t catch, but I closed it enough to keep out at least some of the winter wind. Committed to my intrusion now, I shrugged off my coat and hung it on a hook on the wall. “Forgive us our trespasses,” I muttered.

    I wandered further into the house. Living room, hallway, closet, kitchen. All the rooms of an ordinary house laid out in the ordinary way. All empty. No furniture. No photos. No plants.

    Strange, discomforting thoughts entered my mind. The spirit does not die after the death of the body. It persists. It lingers long in a dismal existence. Distressed and murdered souls in the basement. Is this Asphodel? Or the Pit of Tartarus? Gloomy wandering in and out of the ethereal plane. Incurably damned.

    The windows were obscured with some sort of yellow-gray grime. The light filtering through was uneven and unpleasant. Dust hung slowly in the air. Immortality will be granted at a future time under certain conditions. Attracting unwanted attention. The dust will return. Every time.

    I shook my head to clear the nonsense. But the thoughts continued. There is an increasing demand for narcotics and revenge. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Contentions? Complaints? Wounds without cause? Who had redness of the eye? Your eyes will see strange things. Your heart will hear perversions.

    “Hello?” I called out again. That’s when I saw the stairway door – down to the basement. A light switch was mounted there on the wall at the top of the stairs. I flicked it and light from somewhere appeared. “Hello?” I no longer expected an answer, but still I called.

    And then I decided to see what was in the basement. Stupid decision, I know. I’ve seen the horror movies. I’ve listened to the true crime podcasts. I know how these things go. I know what happens, but still I began to descend the stairs.

    But two or three steps down I halted. Frozen. Suddenly afraid.

    ‘I cannot be cowardly here,’ I said to myself. ‘I will go down the unbelieving stairs.’ I moved again. Slower. ‘What went on in this house, what abominable secrets are in the basement.’ another step. ‘Murder? Sexual assault?’ Another stop. ‘Some sort of sorcery with black candles and circles drawn with salt?’ Down the stairs, one step at a time. ‘There are idols down here.’ I could feel it, every step. Closer. Deeper into the lie. God, it was getting hotter

    The basement was empty and unfinished. Bare walls, exposed concrete. Nothing. No furnace. No ducts. Why was it so hot in there? I wiped the beaded sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. “Hell…” I started to call out once more, but my voice choked.

    In the uncanny light of the empty basement I saw four doors, framed directly into the far wall. Massive, solid doors. And strung across each door were heavy, iron chains secured with filigreed padlocks. Curious, I took a step toward them.

    That’s when the jump-scare cat stepped out of a shadow and mewed at me. At least I think it was the same cat that frighted me at the front door. I didn’t have a chance to look at it closely as it ran out the door. But here it was again in the basement, blocking my path.

    “Hey there, little guy.” I said. “Are you the only one here?” The cat looked at me quizzically but said nothing. Why would he? He licked his paw and cleaned his ear.

    I took another step toward the chained doors and reached to examine one of the locks. And suddenly the jump-scare cat was joined by a great company of cats. Mewling, yowling, stretching, pawing, clawing cats with flicking tails and proud whiskers.

    “What the…” I began to say. The cats swarmed at my feet, rubbing themselves against my ankles, clawing lightly at my jeans. “What’s going on here?” I reached down to pet a black and white mottled cat with slightly crossed eyes. “What is this?” The cat allowed me to stroke his head a few times but then nipped at my fingers with his teeth. A warning? But of what?

    What was locked behind those doors? What mystery? What horror? Where did those doors lead? To some mystic, windswept valley in the light of a garish colored sunset. Did I hear the sound of long-haired Tibetan warriors mounted on horseback?

    Suddenly, as I stared at the doors, I heard the sound of a far distant trumpet, a ram horn shofar blown across the great expanse of the sky and the chains barring those four doors began to rattle. The cats scattered into shadow and I fled the house, staggering incautiously up the stairs, and bursting through the broken door.

He Thinks He's Wild

Our cat, Tang, is a house cat, mostly. He stays indoors except for a few hours,  a few days a week. He doesn't hunt. He doesn't climb. But, still he thinks he's wild.

A Perfect Stranger

I came home from a long day of work; I had been busy all day, moving materials, finding equipment, unloading, loading – but I felt as if I had accomplished very little. I left work with too many things unfinished. But it was good to be home. Home again, home again, fly away home. Once I stepped through that door I could relax in the comfortable and the familiar.

But as soon as I opened the door and stepped through into my apartment I was greeted by her voice. “Good. You’re home,” she said. “I’ve got something wonderful to show you.”

She led me back to the bedroom past the couch, which seemed longer than I remembered it being, and it was covered with several new throw pillows that I didn’t recognize. “Oh.” I said in the bedroom, “A new comforter. Nice.”

“No,” she pouted. “Not the comforter. The cat.”  And sure enough, my cat, Camus, was curled up in an orange furry ball in the center of the bed. She leaned over and whispered something to Camus and he woke up. He stretched a long cat-stretch, then flicked his tail twice before beginning to sing:

Standing tall, on the wings of my dream.
Rise and fall, on the wings of my dream.

The rain and thunder
The wind and haze
I'm bound for better days.

Once finished, Camus, flicked his tail again, curled back up into a ball and began purring as he drifted off to sleep.

“That’s amazing,” I said turning to the face the woman in my bedroom, “but who the hell are you, and how did you get into my apartment?”

Guardian of the Christmas Tree

A Haiku – September 17, 2016

the orange cat
on a pink blanket melts
like summer sherbet

Afternoon Sunflower Delight

I am sitting in the back yard, in a slightly uncomfortable chair, in the shade of a maple tree. The chair might be a bit awkward, but my legs are long and most chairs are ill-fitting. Besides, the book I am reading is entertaining and compelling, and the hum of the bees and the songs of the birds all around is pleasant. It is warm, but not overwhelmingly so; it is a very pleasant and pleasing August afternoon.

The neighbor’s cat (a black tom named Scamper) approaches me. He prowls the neighborhood, roaming through the yards, jumping fences, doing whatever it is that freewill, free-range felines do during the day. He stops by to insist himself against my leg, purring. He flicks his tail to invite me to stroke his back and to rub his head – until he is done. Then he strikes with teeth and claws and an intimidating hiss, but only enough to say, “I’m outa’ here.” He does not draw blood. He leaves the way he came, but he’ll be back again later. When he wants to. Or not.

A little white moth (of what variety I do not know) stumbles around the yard – drunkenly, up, down, forward, side, never in a straight line from anywhere to anywhere. Dip, lift, light, flight, away it goes.

Birds are eating the sunflowers that I planted in my backyard garden. A bright flash of sunlight and shadow dives into the flowers– a goldfinch light enough to lite on the leafy branches pecks with a tiny pointed beak into the dark circle centers of my flowers. Busted seed shells are scattered down below in the dirt. He doesn’t notice me watching him, watching him lean and twist to reach the seeds, then flit and flutter and shake to crack them open. He doesn’t notice me watching the empty seed husks fall. But I see him.

Perhaps if I were a professional farmer, a sunflower farmer, dependent upon a good crop of seeds to sell, I’d be distressed by this thievery. But I’m not so I’m not. I grow these flowers for the challenge and the delight of seeing them grow. And for the delight of watching bees and birds flying in and among them.

The backdoor opens to let the dog out for a bit. She’s an eleven year old Great Dane, once bounding with energy and a sleek black coat, now slow and grey and white in the face. But she still loves to be outside. The seed stealing goldfinch is startled and takes flight, swooping up into the branches of the maple tree above me.

I see great bomber bees, fuzzy yellow zeppelins, bumbling back and forth among the dinner plate blossoms – bomber bees that live not in a hive, but in a hole in the ground (I’ve followed them. It’s a hole in the ground near the air-conditioner unit). I see Yellow Jacket wasps, and Hoverflies – which look like bees but are not, as well as that flashy yellow goldfinch – returned with his slightly duller hued female companion (no less glorious in her muted colors) now that the dog has lay down in a shady corner of the yard, far from the sunflower buffet. 

I’ve also seen, to my surprise (and delight) humming birds eating at my sunflowers, ruby throated, green lighting darts darting in to feed on fresh brewed sun tea, sweet tea, sweet sunflower nectar, which must be the ambrosia of Helios himself. There are orange and black butterflies too, floating among the blood-red-soon-to-turn-deep-yellow heads. They are the majestic monarchs of a disappearing kingdom.

I complained last summer of the squirrels who snicked the heads off my sunflowers in order to snack on the seeds, but I wasn’t really upset. This too the way of the world; the squirrels, too, are a delight.

I don’t know if my sunflowers will help preserve the bees and the butterflies. Perhaps their declines are already too far gone. This is the way the world ends - not with a bang, not in fire, not in ice as some folks will say, but in futility -in the buzzless despair of unpollinated futility. The world will be a sorrowful place when the bees and butterflies are gone forever. So I delight in them if and while I can.

Lazy Cat

...because the internets is all about cats...

Lazy Cat by Jeff Carter on 500px

Master Nansen and King Solomon

It is said that Nansen, the Chinese Buddhist master, saw the monks of the Eastern and Western halls quarreling over a cat; each wanted the cat to remain in their part of the monastery.  Nansen held up the cat and said, “You monks, if any one of you can say a true word of love for this cat, I will spare its life.  If not, I will kill it with a sword.”  No one could answer, so Nansen cut the cat in two.

I think Master Nansen must have studied at the feet of King Solomon.

(Nansen’s story is recorded in the 13^th century Chinese text The Gateless Gate, King Solomon’s in 1 Kings 3:16-28.)

Tang

This is our cat, Tang.  He's an indoor cat, but when the weather is nice, and he's been behaving himself, we let him (and the dog) lay around in the backyard.  Tang was out for a while this afternoon, but didn't really seem to enjoy it.  The squirrels in the trees were yelling at him. So he came back into the house and is sitting by the screen door.

Tang by Jeff Carter on 500px

Biblical Limericks: Lion of Judah

If Christ is the Lion of Judah
does he behave as lions should-a?
That is, does he, perhaps
spend the day taking naps?
Sleep most of the day? Hallelujah!

Revelation 5: 5

A Haiku (May 5)

orange house cat always
just beyond my reach mewing
for my attention

What Is This Thing Called Hanukkah?

Mist Shrouded Moon on a Night in November

Our cat slipped unnoticed out the door last night as we were carrying a number of things in from the van.  When we realized that he was out, I went out to try to find him.  But, being the recalcitrant cat that he is, he wouldn't come back right away.

I carried my camera while out looking for him.  I find myself carrying it with me most every time I go out.  If I can't find the cat, I can at least find a good photo.The mist shrouded moon gleamed behind the bare branches on this night in November.

This photo and several others that I have taken recently are available for sale - either as a digital download ($2.99) or as a professional quality canvas print ($211).  The money from these sales goes to the Salvation Army of Newton, Iowa.

(The cat came back early this morning - though he found himself trapped on the other side of our neighbor's fence and couldn't figure out how to get back to our yard. )

November Night by Jeff Carter

An Autumn Owl

An autumn owl
disturbs the cat

I’m not sleeping either

Deth Kitteh

What Does a Cat Know of Kafka?

The family cat pauses mid-step as he approaches me to stretch one leg out behind him, and then another.  He sits and stares at me in my chair, reading a collection of stories by Kafka.  What does a cat know of Kafka? Or care? He flicks his tail one, twice and leaves me for the relative warmth of the sun in the window.

We're All Going to Die!

Morrissey the Cat

A Terrible Mistake

Timmy's Fallen Into the Well