(photo by Timothy Meinberg via Unsplash)
I stay by the fire. The chores will have to wait for I can’t turn my mind to them. Wood cracks in the grate, spits out sap to sizzle and dance before dying.
She’s ink black, sleek as an eel, curled tight in my lap. I feel her breathing, though her purr is lost beneath the howling wind, the groan of roof beams above our heads.
He’s out on the waves, deafened by spray, blinded by gales, fingers stiff and cracked as the boards beneath his feet. Keep him safe, little Puss, keep him safe.
Written for Sonya at Only 100 Words’ Three Line Tales. See here to join in and read the other tales.
Inspired by a line from a Wiki page on ship’s cats and superstition. Fishermen’s wives would keep black cats in the hope the animal would use its supernatural influence to protect their men out at sea.
Grimalkin was the name given to cats in general but also to witches’ familiars. A cat called Grimalkin is a familiar to the Three Witches in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
I admire the way you tell us so much by implication!
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Thanks so much, Penny. All those generations of women , waiting for the owrst to happen while the worst is happening to their menfolk. No wonder they turned to superstition. Thanks so much for reading 🙂
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Beautifully told and strankely (spookily?) referenced Shakespeare as I had done too- how does that happen?
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Yes, funny that – two cats and one Shakespeare and a Three Line Tale. The guy does get around a lot mind you 🙂 Thank you for the kind words and for reading mine
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Yes, he gets around I guess. Perhaps it would have been stranger if we’d referenced a more contemporary playwright.
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Yes, someone more obscure. Though good old Bill is always there when we need him 🙂
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It was interesting reading the wiki entry on ‘mortal coil’ and its etymology…that’s where my departure into the rabbit hole began…I hadn’t even realised at that point that it was from Hamlet.
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He’s responsible for so many expressions in English, isn’t he? Well, at least making them popular. Between him and the King James bible, they’ve cut up half the idioms we still use today 🙂
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Ha yes.
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Beautiful, vivid writing. I not only “saw” this story, but felt it.
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Thank you so much, Isabel. A lovely comment 🙂
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