The Western Gate

He had, from the start, no aversions to cats. The odd shit left by the cat in his garden, more’s the pity was forgiven as unrelenting temptation down to the clump of Catnip he grew in his copious herb garden. It was to be expected after all that the cat would be attracted to that narcotic aroma, well intoxicating to cats anyway.
It is said from small acorns , the mighty oak grows, and likewise, from a small niggling festering nuisance, obsession awaits around the corner.
The odd shit, the trampling of some of his more tender and fragile herbs, the way it would lie there in the herb plot as if it were the lord and master of that arena.
At first a gentle tap on the window, then a louder one when the cat vacantly stared back at the peasant trying to bother its lazy do nothing day. Within a short time the peasant herbalist began shooing the manky old cat away with a broom, and then throwing some gravel, or stones, and then rocks. It was at this point, throwing rocks, that at first were deliberately targeted to miss the damned cat, but with each turn became steadily closer to the object of disdain where, our now obsessed peasant herbalist realised a problem was festering. From being a minor annoyance, the cat had in fact became an object of hate, and, more’s the pity, in the peasants mind was deliberately provoking him.
It doesn’t need to be said, though I will, for it is perfectly obvious but worth reminding ourselves here for the clarity of the cats perspective, it or indeed any cat does not understand borders, nor the law of trespass, it only follows its nose, and its contentment.
The peasant! Tv programmes were being missed, phone calls unanswered and door bells lost because he spent longer and longer peering through the back window overlooking his herb garden to see if the cat was there. Upsetting his routine, missed phone calls et al, gave rise to even more anger from the now unbalanced, obsessed peasant herbalist.
The catalyst of increasing anger occurred when the cat was seen to pounce upon a small sparrow pecking at the dirt, the cat rolling around the herb garden, an injured sparrow being tossed and played with by the cat, and watched by the now horrified herbalist. Out he ran, the cat leaping over to its owners home some two gardens away, the bird of course writhed on the ground with small globules of glistening blood before giving up the ghost.
The unbalanced possessed peasant herbalist now became focused and methodical, deliberate and cunning, and angry, wrathful.
So it was. An ingenious box snare cast over the beloved Catnip which would set of a spring trap once the nosey, encroaching feline ventured into the catch zone.
The herbalist witnessed the scene of course as he had been watching from the little window from the time the trap was set until the cat was caught. Some four hours. forgoing breakfast, cups of tea, his favourite daytime TV show, the postman and three phone calls.
The cat now trapped , the herbalist had no clue as to what to do next, he muted the idea to drive the cat some 30 miles away in his car and let the pest free in some desolate wilderness. He toyed with the idea, based upon avenging the poor sparrow, to attached a bunch of helium balloons to the box and send the cat up into the clouds, see how it would fare in the birds territory. He had a plan, perhaps, to attach a string of bells to its collar as some cat owners do as a warning to any bird of its presence, maybe he would also attach a note, that the cat was a killer, so the neighbours would understood why those bells were affixed to its collar.
He kept the cat, in the box in the cupboard under the stairs and fed it scraps as and when. It gave him a sense of power, a Godlike master complex, the cat’s fate were squarely in his hands.

Now a word must be said on the owners of the cat. They were not as this story perhaps would prejudice uncouth, untidy and uncaring. They loved that cat as if it were their child, their house was relatively shall we say lived in, a single woman-mum, two daughters and an elder adolescent teenage boy, it’ were a home that reflected its nature, functional rather than a pristine show-house, things left where things could be found not necessarily where things should be placed in accordance with tidiness and order.
The cat was missing, the daughter’s were distraught, the mother was heard nearly every hour calling for it over the gardens.
It would soon be fireworks night, if the cat were lost, how afraid it would be with flashes and bangs, shrieks and whizz-pop-booms. The family became frantic. Posters affixed to every tree and ‘Sellotaped’ to every lamppost with a picture of that beloved pet and the promise of reward. To no avail.
Our cunning, content and cruel herbalist would ritually just open the door of the dingy cupboard slightly and throw in some scraps, he heard the cat making pathetic noises, a few scratches which would be stilled by a hard kick to frighten the horrible creature. It’s only hope, that shaft of light when scraps of dinner came.
The herbalist was stopped in the street one time by the neighbour asking, pleading for him to check his garden, his shed, behind any clutter or underneath anything, anywhere, the cat may be. Her poor girls, the poor son, the “poor me”, she cried.

It were fireworks night, the distant booms began early. Low thuds in the sunset.
Our herbalist had deftly and quietly placed within the neighbours garden, in a box, the cat, and to placate it and perhaps somewhat as a parting gift a bunch of catnip to steady its nerves, somewhat, as the rigmarole and kerfuffle to get it into the new sturdy box was something that gifted the herbalist a few scratches and an explosion of expletives and swear words.
Atop the box a note read ” Bird killer inside !! Beware “
The cat didn’t really need, though was grateful for, the catnip as the days spent in the darkened cupboard had left it sickly weak, exhausted.

The night drew in and the box the cat in a dozy dreamy reverie.
In the garden the girls and son and mother came out into the garden to let off a collection of fireworks and light an equally small bonfire in the old tin dustbin.
The youngest daughter opened the box…..,
to espy the fireworks within with eager greedy eyes, distracted from days of misery contemplating the suffering and whereabouts of cat. For a few moments they could, as a family, enjoy a little respite from angst and worry.
Mother lit the little bonfire, stuffed with screwed up newspaper and surplus- “help, cat missing” posters.
The son welcomed in two friends to witness the little firework display and perhaps prod sticks into the fire and dare each other to light each firework.
Mother began handing out marshmallows and went back to collect soft drinks whilst one of the sons friends read the peculiar box in the corner of the garden… “Bird killer inside !! Beware”, He picked it up and gave it a little shake, nothing, a little scratching perhaps, before dropping it realizing inside was probably a huge rat from the nearby canal. The other friend witness to this and party to his friends explanation that a sharp tooth, bent clawed rodent foaming at the mouth lay within, was not so fearful and picked up the box, gave it a rigorous shake and threw it straight into the now roaring fire.
The daughters stood up to see the commotion at the end of the garden and then joined their brother’s friends to see what was occurring.
The ‘rat’ struggled and bounced within the corrugated cardboard box, each side of the box turning red, orange, rippling away, before the cardboard collapsed exposing the creature within, a black writhing clawed demon sprang forth over the shoulders of the three boys, its tail and back haunches ablaze, it landed between the boys and the horrified and now screaming daughters, whilst mother emerging back into the garden dropped the tray of soft drinks onto the floor shattering. The cat let out a grotesque wailing that pierced the sky and married its voice with the frightening and distant fireworks. The burning flames danced along its back, up it flew again in burning agony and down it came into the box of fireworks which exploded all at once into a carnival of glittering light and sonic booms, each made more chaotic by the cat tossing frantically in the tangled mass of fireworks, each exploding or letting out showers of colourful sparks amidst screeches, whizzes, ungodly cries from two young girls, the mother’s desperate screams to get everyone inside, and not least the unrelenting death cries from the shrieking cat that all at once ceased and the moment the cat’s spirit and life yielded to darkness the, now, pyre exploded into a glorious array of rainbow bridges that catapulted its soul to the other side of the thin Samhain veil.

Meanwhile, a few doors down, the herbalist lifted up his weary carcass from the table having stirred his night time cocoa whilst reminiscing on his deeds to see what all the commotion outside was. Is there no peace on this Earth.

Afterword

The above tale was adapted from one gained by lucid dream with ‘Rumi’ which began as the analogy, “ In a pure white room, in pure white clothes, the contented man frowns at the speck of dust.” He then discoursed on the petty and trivial matters that upset those whose lives are content and free from concerns of basic needs and survival. The gossiping and chattering classes. It was sometime after we returned to this theme and he relayed the story of the great cat that lived in the palace whose presence began to annoy the gardener whose only concern was the beauty of the splendid palace gardens. The cat, ultimately suffered the same fate, consumed by fire after the gardener hid it away in a box, whereupon the gardener would cruelly tease and offer the cat little morsels of food, his obsession had become quite evil. The box itself was hidden in a wood pile that was subsequently lit to celebrate the princesses engagement, the huge bonfire itself were a gesture to make her happy following the disappearance of her beloved cat.
I have not found this story anywhere else, as usual is the case in many lucid dream tales. Rumi did not ascribe the story as from his own mind but had relayed it from another whose name which he did tell me, I cannot recall. AS he was relaying the story, every time he mentioned the beautiful garden he would deliberately stamp on a flower, or kick at some bloom or something to provoke me into protest, I guess, he wanted me to see him as the cat, and me as the gardener… I dont know.
The following night after this story I had a dream, not lucid, where the shadow of a cat continuously stalked me, and I recalled that great film- The Black Cat- Karloff and Lugosi