The Perfect Stranger

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The cat under the front porch was at it again. Scratching at the slab of wood that echoed through the hardwood floors of my bedroom. Sharpening its claws, marking its territory – relentless in the dead of night.

I sat on the edge of the bed, stomped my feet on the wood, thought, Please let me sleep, which had become my repeated plea to all things living and nonliving out here, whatever piece of nature was at work each particular night.

The scratching stopped, and I eased back under the sheets.

Other sounds, more familiar now: the creak of the old mattress, crickets, a howl as the wind funneled through the valley. All of it orienting me to my new life – the bed I slept in, the valley I lived in, a whisper in the night: You are here.

I had been raised and built for city life, had grown accustomed to the sound of people on the street below, the car horns, the train running on the track until midnight. Had come to expect footsteps overhead, doors slamming shut, water in the pipes running through my walls. I could sleep through all of it.

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