All the Pretty Words

I did some laundry today and was hanging up some clothes in the closet when Josie ran inside it to play as she always does. I sighed because I knew she’d jump onto my borrowed suitcase and then jump from there to the closet shelf, from which she loves to stare out into the rest of my bedroom, and then I’d have to bribe her down with kitty treats. I finished hanging up the clothes and started to look for her so I could get her out before she jumped up onto the shelf, but I couldn’t hear her rooting around on the floor. I looked towards the back of the closet and noticed for the first time that in the part beyond the space the clothes rod hangs over, there is an unfinished space that can’t be reached save by actually crawling inside the closet and going back there. I kept peering into the darkness and wished the closet had a light in it and tried to find the cat but I couldn’t, at which point my imagination kicks in and I pictured these wild scary creatures that could be crawling about in the space between my floor and the ceiling of the first floor, and I thought that I should always keep the closet door shut or else they’d crawl up through the unfinished space and I’d have all kinds of scary things in my apartment. At that very moment, Josephine leapt for my face. It scared the bejesus out of me. Some days, I think she channels the spirit of Edgar Allen Poe or something.