I was looking at a pile of old broken things—including a TV—in the living room of the house of one of my grandparents. Walking into an adjoining room, I began to collect pins and nails that I had seen on the floor. They'd been hurting me and I decided to contain them into a little plastic container.
When I returned to the room, things had been rearranged—and there was a newly sealed box for the TV. I looked at it, and my (deceased) grandfather was sitting in a recliner looking at it. Feeling emotional, I teared up a bit.
me: "It's just sad. I guess there was a time when you bought a new TV and it was exciting, before the stroke and when all you could do was flip through channels."grandfather: "Well these things happen. And it hasn't turned out to be all bad. Why—morris here just turned 20."
It seemed like a fairly normal cat, but its teeth were somewhat awry. I reached out my hand to pet it, but it moved away, and spoke.
cat: "No."(Note: Morris might not have been the name of the cat and it might have been another age. Also these grandparents always had dogs, so its weird there'd be a cat on that sofa.)
me: "Ok, another example right there. Cats can't talk. People can't talk to the dead. So what's going on?"grandfather: "I'll see that we do more to get hammer out... the, uh..."
me: "The mechanics of these interactions."
grandfather: "Yes. We'll see what we can do. And also, see what we can do to get square on why you and I are unique in this."
me: "I think the question is: Why is everyone else not square about this. It leads me to wonder what's gone wrong. What's being hidden, and for what purpose?"
The grandfather figure seemed to transform into a big grey cat/rat thing and looked at me closely, bringing its face right up to mine.
big cat: (scornfully) "Hateful."me: "Yes, I have been."
(Note: Have been trying to work on that.)
