Aftersight by Brian Mercer

we are going faster and faster... Mrs. Norris? Mrs. Norris, are you attending?"
    I hadn't noticed before, because at first Mrs. Norris had looked perfectly normal, dressed as she ordinarily was in a wool sweater and old lady's pleated skirt. Yet now I observed that there were stray strands of wiry grey twisting out of her normally well-groomed bun and that the flesh beneath her eyes was swollen and tear-worn.
    "Mrs. Norris, are you all right? What is the matter?"
    She fumbled with a hanky and daintily blew her nose. "Nothing, child. I don't want to upset you." Her voice warbled miserably, as if all semblance of dignity and civility might suddenly crumble.
    My heart throbbed at the sight of it and a wave of grief hit me with a shudder. To see this sweet old woman suffering, this woman who always had a smile and kind word and biscuit at the ready, who had no one in the world save her neighbors and her cat, was almost more than I could endure. "Mrs. Norris, what's wrong? Please tell me."
    The widow placed her hand over her mouth and tears flowed unbidden down her cheeks. "I am so sorry. Forgive me."
    "It's all right, Mrs. Norris." I took Mrs. Norris's hand and sat on the floor near her chair while she wept.
    Composing herself with a deep breath, Mrs. Norris announced, "I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I am very sad to reveal that Sid is gone."
    "What do you mean gone ?" I frowned. "You mean escaped?" My eyes flicked from Mrs. Norris to Sid, who sat placidly there on the colonel's chair.
    "No, dear," she replied, clearing her throat. "Sid passed away last week, quietly, in his sleep. He was with me on the bed in the night and in the morning he was cold. It was the morning of your accident."
    "But Mrs. Norris, Sid is right there." I pointed to the colonel's chair, but it was empty now.
    "I'm so sorry to have to upset you when you're recovering from your fall."
    "But Mrs. Norris, I just saw Sid right here in this chair a moment ago."
    "Oh, Sara, you know no one is allowed in that chair. Sid wouldn't sit there."
    "He always sits there!"
    "Oh, dear. I have upset you."
    "But Mrs. Norris, I just saw him. I swear. He was right here."
    I continued to protest and Mrs. Norris continued to insist, even after she showed me the polished silver urn in the china hutch where she kept the ashes of all her former felines. Mrs. Norris indicated the fresh engraving, "Sydney Ragamuffin Norris III," but I refused to be convinced. Finally, she gave me a fretful, careworn look, thinking no doubt of my recent knock on the head and possible lingering brain injury. Fearing that Mrs. Norris would think I'd gone mad — or, more directly, that she might report the visit to Mother — I allowed myself to be persuaded and said nothing more.
    Now, hours later as I lay in bed in the dark, I wondered if maybe I'd hallucinated it. It occurred to me that perhaps I'd seen Sid because I expected to see him, had wanted to see him, and had somehow been mistaken. But if that was true, why would I see him on the colonel's chair, the very last place I would suppose him to be? I dozed fitfully. My headache had returned.
    I awoke in the deep hours of the night, when the flat was quiet and the traffic outside subdued. No one had bothered to draw my curtains closed that evening and a pale shaft of moonlight slanted onto the Persian rug in the middle of the room. And there, in the center of the dim puddle of light, I saw movement.
    I blinked sleepily, forcing my eyes into focus. A cat sat curled up there, licking its paw and cleaning his ear with the wet fur. He lapped at his paw and cleaned his ear, lapped at his paw and cleaned his ear. I could make out the faint lines of his dark face and tail, the brilliant white mittens and feet. The cat was clearly Sid.
    I rubbed the crumbs from my eyes, but Sid's image remained. Now I understood that the old Birman must really have died, for there was no way for the animal to have crept into our locked flat and into my