Thread by @drspacejunk

Tales of the ghost cat. When I was doing my PhD, I lived for a while in a small ornate wooden house. Once it had been the billiards room for a wealthy estate. It had a mantlepiece for leaning on with pipes and low hanging lights. @DrMel_T

After the wealthy estate was broken up and sold off for residential development, the billiards room (which was lined with red cedar) became a mortuary chapel for the local hospital. #talesoftheghostcat

I inherited the lease from a fellow PhD student when she moved. She told me that a psychic once visited the house and saw the souls of the dead gathered near the fireplace. They werent scary, just a little sad #talesoftheghostcat

I also inherited her cat, Somerset Prawn. Prawnie liked to go out hunting at night. The window outside my bedroom door was always raised a little so he could come and go. #talesoftheghostcat

Often I'd go out to the bathroom on a chilly morning (with bare feet) to find half a disembowelled rat on the tiles. #yuk #talesoftheghostcat

Other prey Somerset Prawn the cat brought home included half a sausage roll and a baby white fluffy bunny. The bunny was unharmed. He'd stolen it from a little girl's rabbit hutch, the cunning devil. We returned it. #talesoftheghostcat

But Somerset Prawn is a real cat, I hear you say. Sure, but he was haunted too. He had a ghost doppelganger. #talesoftheghostcat

My bedroom had been built by erecting partitions in the end of the billiards room. There was no door in the frame and the walls didn't reach the ceiling, which was very high. #talesoftheghostcat

As a result I could hear when Somerset Prawn went out at night through the open window and when he returned, often in the wee hours. He didn't make much noise and I'd barely be aware of it. #talesoftheghostcat

Often he'd come and curl up on the end of the bed, close to my feet. I'd know he was there when I moved my feet and felt his weight on the blankets. #talesoftheghostcat

Gradually I became aware of something peculiar. I would hear Prawnie come through the window and return to my slumbers. #talesoftheghostcat

Then, a little while later, I would hear him ACTUALLY come through the window. Was I dreaming before? If not, who or what had entered the house in the guise of a cat? #talesoftheghostcat

Then, one night, I heard Prawnie come home and jump on the end of the bed to curl up. I felt his weight depressing the bed clothes. I extended a foot towards him in greeting. #talesoftheghostcat

You know what I am going to say. There was nothing there. No cat. My foot moved unimpeded. The weight of the cat was an illusion created by the ghostly cat, shattered by my intrusion. I went back to sleep. #talesoftheghostcat

A little while later, Prawnie came home and settled on the end of the bed. I hardly dared move; was this too an illusion? Cautiously I reached out with my foot, to be met with the familiar resistance of his solid body. #talesoftheghostcat

After that the ghost cat was a not infrequent visitor and I ceased to worry about him. He even acquired a name. We were trying to think of the name of the ghost in 'The Captain and Mrs Muir' - remember that show? #talesoftheghostcat

But all my brain could come up with was Captain Stubing from The Love Boat. So the ghost cat became Captain Stubing. #talesoftheghostcat

Then I left the house to move in with a boyfriend. Prawnie came too but he ran away and we never found him again. When, a year later, I broke up with this bloke, I moved back to the mortuary chapel. #talesoftheghostcat

The ghost cat never came back either. The end #talesoftheghostcat