Text #4: The Ghost Cat
(i) Source:
The following passage is derived from
Cumberland University librarian John D. Boniol’s
personal experience with a phantom feline
Author: John D. Boniol
Boniol, John D. “Ghost Cat.” Map Cat. Iron Frog Productions. mapcat.org/librarycatsmap/tnl-ghst.html.
(ii) Text:
There is a ghost cat that haunts the library. Where it came from and why it is haunting the library is unknown. He may belong to the little girl ghost who also haunts the library, although they have never been seen together.
On the evening of March 5, 2001 at approximately 9:45 PM, I was in my office at the Cumberland University Library in Lebanon, TN when I saw a ghost cat come floating across my office floor and disappear among the boxes stored under the table behind my desk. I did not see any legs or paws and no motion like a normal cat walking on a floor. The apparition was near the floor, about the right height for a cat, but it appeared to be gliding smoothly through the air instead of touching the floor. I couldn’t tell if it came in through the door or came from under my desk. Hallucinating? Nerves? Heard too many ghost stories about Cumberland? Gone gaga? I don’t know for sure, but I swear that I did see a cat-like something sail across the room and disappear. It appeared to be gray in color, but I could not discern many features, as it appeared to be willowy and in the general shape of a cat. There were other people in the library, and I had just gotten up from my desk to make my nightly rounds prior to closing when I saw the figure.
According to Dr. Frank Burns, Cumberland’s archivist, we have a ghost of a little girl in the library. He and a former librarian have seen her. She appears to be dressed in white and so far as is known, she has been seen only by these two people. The former librarian would sometimes play peek-a-boo with her around the checkout desk. No one knows who she might be. I have not seen her, but I have had an eerie feeling some nights especially when I am back in the Clement Room and Castle Heights Room. The sensation is like a feeling or vibration that something else is there even though I have never seen or heard anything out the ordinary, except for the ghost cat in my office.
(iii) Texture:
John Boniol’s account of the ghost cat in the Cumberland University library reads like nonfiction, and his telling is peppered with highly specific details throughout. Unlike the two ghost stories above, he goes in for as much detail as possible, and this lends a strong sense of reality to the event he recounts. He states the date and exact time of his encounter with the specter, exactly where he was, and gives as precise a physical description of the phantom as possible, given its fuzzy nature. This includes the animal’s color, movements, rough shape, and its eerie silence. He even questions his senses, and this adds to the sense of reality found throughout his story. While he does emphasize his shocked mental stocktaking, he begins his story by stating that “there is a ghost cat that haunts the library” (emphasis added), leaving no doubt that he ultimately believes his experience was genuine. He also calls on his coworkers’ own supernatural experiences regarding the presence of a ghost girl to further convince his audience that the event he witnessed had precedence.
(iv) Context:
From the spare nature of the article, I had difficulty finding much in the way of context. John D. Boniol is a librarian at the Doris & Harry Vise Library at Cumberland University in Lebanon, TN. This makes it highly likely that he told his story in the library, and the story itself is certainly set there in very concrete terms. We know he witnessed the supposed ghost cat in his office, the date and time of this occurrence, and details of the event itself. The “ghost cat” is also embedded in the already reported experiences of his colleagues, witnesses to other phantoms, giving it a place in the library’s previously established spiritual “ecology.”
(v) Interpretation:
Cats have been associated with the supernatural and liminality throughout human history, and carry mysterious, even otherworldly qualities that seemingly figure into nearly every culture’s folkloric traditions. Feline + ghost equals a creature doubly mysterious, even unnerving. The librarian’s supposed sighting didn’t carry malevolent connotations with it, but he did feel a bit rattled by the creature’s silent and momentary presence. As a doubly liminal being, the ghost cat may be an embodiment of the in-betweenness of his workplace itself, and just as the 11th floor of Wells symbolizes an unspoken sense of that liminality, the ghost cat seems to do something similar. Why does Boniol feel motivated to continue to share (and foster) his ghost cat story? Perhaps it is because it allows everyone, himself included, to feel a part of a strange, otherworldly community populated by inscrutable beings, enlivening a place that is at turns dull, stressful, and all too alive. Maybe these ghost stories are really about entertainment and, most especially community, as they unite people in a shared attempt at understanding themselves and otherness. I believe libraries are wonderfully alive, and I find their liminality to be highly enjoyable, but that’s just me.