Crater Lake To Stanley, Day 5 : Curiosity

I’m still in Christmas Valley. I’ve decided to take the day off, since I still feel tired and fuzzy-brained from yesterday’s efforts. I’ve spent most of the day holed up in my motel room, drinking root beer and catching up on a few months’ worth of web comics, such as Flintlocke’s Guide To Azeroth. I don’t even have the mental capacity to listen to an audiobook.

I fall asleep for a nap around six, then wake up every hour or so. At 9:00pm I open the windows. Around 10:00pm, on the edge of sleep, I sense an impact on the mattress, like a cat jumping up on the bed, and I feel a cat face sniffing at my beard. Then I feel the vibrations of it purring.

I turn my head and there is nothing there. The purring vanishes.

I drift around near sleep for a while longer, feeling confused, but not afraid. It would be nice to get a visit from a cat, I think.

I’m almost entirely asleep, and then once again I hear a cat jump on the bed. This time it pads over and sits down with its front paws at the side of my neck, and lays its head across my neck under my chin, like my old cat Tuna used to do. I feel its warmth and hear purring. “That’s nice,” I think, and I feel myself dropping into the blackness of deep sleep, but in confusion I fight against it and open my eyes.

No paws. No purring. No cat.

This is the first time in a long time that the border between sleep and wakefulness has been so stretched that I actually hallucinate.

I get up and close the windows, since the room is now cool. I get back into bed and turn on my side, and sleep through the night.