Night Whispers

Moustache waited until I turned off the light before he appeared.

I say appeared because no other word fits. The door was closed. I hadn't heard him come in. And yet there he was, sitting on the edge of the bed, a dark silhouette cut out against the faint light from the window. His eyes glowed like two small, private moons.

"Not now," I murmured. "I'm asleep."

He blinked slowly, which, in his language, probably meant: you think you're asleep — a fine distinction.

Then he climbed onto me with that relative delicacy cats reserve for creatures they love — which is to say, by planting one paw precisely on the most sensitive spot of my rib cage. He curled into a ball, let the full weight of him settle on my ribs, and began to purr.

At first, it was just an ordinary purr. A warm, familiar, reassuring vibration. The kind of sound that makes you want to forgive every toppled plant, every stray hair on black clothing, every surprise ankle attack.

Then the rhythm changed.

The purring grew deeper, steadier. It no longer seemed to come only from his throat, but to sink into the mattress, pass through the sheets, and travel up my arms. Soon I had the impression it was vibrating behind my own eyes. The walls of the room began to breathe softly, as though they were made of some living substance.

I tried to sit up. I couldn't. Not because I was paralyzed, but because the room itself seemed to be drawing away from me, layer after layer. The dresser, the window, the ceiling — everything was turning translucent, as if someone had lowered the opacity of the world.

Moustache opened one eye.

"Finally," he said.

I'm rather proud that I didn't scream. Honestly, I don't think I had it in me anymore. My mouth must have stayed behind with my body, while some other version of me — lighter, hazier, and considerably less equipped to handle a conversation with a talking cat — was already floating a few inches above the bed.

"Moustache?"

"Who else?" he answered. "The radiator?"

His voice wasn't a sound. It didn't reach me through my ears. It arrived directly inside my head, in that dry, elegant tone I had always secretly imagined he had: a blend of English aristocrat, weary professor, and restaurant owner deeply disappointed by the service.

"You talk?"

"For a long time now. You humans don't listen much."

He got to his feet on top of my sleeping body — for yes, my body was still lying on the bed, which rather complicated the image I had of myself — and stretched, as if this revelation deserved no more emotion than a change of cushion.

"We don't have much time," he went on. "The crossing window is stable for a few more minutes. After that, we'll have to wait for the next suitable alignment, and I had a recovery nap planned."

"The crossing window?"

"Exactly. Try to keep up. Slowly, if you must, but keep up."

Before I could ask a coherent question — which would have taken some time in any case — Moustache leapt toward the window. Not onto the sill. Through the window. His body passed through the glass without a sound, as if he were slipping through a curtain of water.

I hung there above the bed, torn between two very deep-seated human instincts: panic, or pretending everything was perfectly normal.

"Are you coming?" he called from the other side. "Or would you rather go back to dreaming you left your pants in a supermarket?"

The argument was convincing.

I followed him.