Cats

Even the word gives me the creeps.  I wrote earlier that I'm terrified of cats but it's not so simple.  For one thing it should be the other way around.  Cats terrorize me.

Cats are repulsive.  Loose fur over the solid body underneath.  And I'm particularly worried by dead cats.  In nightmares cats are often dead and dismembered.  Horrors that cannot be explained by known experience.  I can't really think of many cats in my childhood.  My cousins had a cat.  We visited their house once a year on Christmas Day.  I remember dogs walking by.  Jessie from the street behind, for example, was some kind of low-to-the-ground beagle.  He waddled through our yard much like Toby at the cottage who was even lower and fatter.  I don't remember cats.

Once in high school English, a cat came in the open door of our portable.  The teacher asked if anyone was afraid of cats.  Of course I didn't speak up but I was stunned that someone would ask.  Could ask.  It was possible to say that I was afraid of cats.  So I still say that I'm afraid of cats -- which explains nothing.