Apparition or figment, 10 October 2005
“…staring at the place where it had stood.”
For the last couple of weeks we’ve been waking up to two cats flanking our pillow like library lions: Saffy on our right, Mat on our left. (Drogon is sprawled at our feet.) This reminded us of something that happened some years ago. Or didn’t happen—we’re not sure we saw what we saw, and anyway we’ve always had bad eyesight and an overactive imagination. Luckily we remembered which notebook we’d recorded it in, though locating that particular notebook took an hour.
The journal entry matches our recollection, except for one bit. We only saw the lower part of the figure, and it looked like the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Which is a massive ancient sculpture that wouldn’t fit in our doorway, and even if it did, it would probably fall right through the floor.
No, we weren’t under the influence at the time, but we had been in a black mood all week. Then that thing happened, or didn’t happen, and for some reason it cheered us up immensely. We told just a couple of people because it was bizarre, even for us.
Us: We saw an apparition.
Them: What did it look like?
Us: The Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 16th, 2013 at 10:39
Let me share a similar experience.
I never saw her again, but I wished she paid another visit. I can use her smiling presence.
The first time I saw her was in 2010. I remember it well because it was then that I broke up with my partner of five years. Actually, it was a few months after we broke up; I was no longer a mess, and I have been sleeping longer hours then. Anyway, this happened in the early hours of the morning. I remember that, too, because I was sleeping nights in those days. I was roused from the usual suspended state by nothing suspicious in particular. I just woke up.
And there she was at the foot of my bed. The lights were off, but the large windows behind her allowed some moonlight to reveal her form. She appeared to be a little girl, a little over three feet, maybe four, and she had straight hair that framed her face down to her shoulders. I remember nothing of what she wore, or if she moved, or if she whispered. She was just there, at the foot of my bed, in what can be three in the morning.
But I remember this one detail very well — she was smiling at me. Again, the spare moonlight missed her face, but her presence was as happy as it was sudden. There was nothing scary or threatening about this strange little girl in my room at three in the morning. I remember she was small, and she had straight hair, and that she had the happiest presence for something that wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place.
I was lying still. She was not moving. Has it been a minute now? I don’t know, but I decided to sit up and maybe take a closer look. At that very moment of movement, my little angel then crawled down the foot of my bed, where I cannot see her, like she was inviting a game of hide and seek. I did not expect that. The cat I am still living in with, Prince, was huddled to my right in a careless ball. He was sleeping. I did not expect that, as well. He’s supposed to be sensitive!
Her sudden movement down the foot of my bed did not discourage my investigation. I was curious as to what I was supposed to be seeing next. Will she be kneeling down? Will she be looking up at me this time? Will she laugh or snicker or whisper something? What is she up to? And so I followed her down the foot of my bed where it was empty except for my well-used slippers.
And, aside from the movement from my years-old stand fan, it was silent.
I looked back to where Prince was. He was awake. Not a miao or a flick of his tail issued from that cat. He was standing up and looking at me, and I felt he was irritated that he had to wake up to me looking stupid down at whatever. And if I remember it right, the words “Human, please” registered well at his face. I don’t care. For some reason, my little angel’s balming presence kept me happy that morning.
I never saw her again. But I’m looking forward to it.
October 16th, 2013 at 12:46
Momelia: Thank you for that story. After our episode, we consulted our druid who comes from a line of Jungian analysts, and she said that in our emotional state we had summoned up an archetype from the collective unconscious: the wise old man/woman. Kind of like a visitation from Gandalf or the Bene Gesserit.
In your case you had recovered from an emotional separation and you saw another archetype: the child. And the archetype is supposed to be a part of you that is telling you something.
In any case, imagined or not, they brought us comfort.
October 16th, 2013 at 19:42
Trying to de-scare myself, I think of Constantine:
‘Cats are good. Half-in,half-out.’