A dead cat and the ghost of his piss.

Perhaps it would be best to clarify straight out that I don't tend to believe in those phenomena described as "paranormal," no matter how much I'd like to. At the same time, I do accept the idea that there are things in this universe that we cannot understand simply because of the way our sensory organs are built. Our scientific knowledge, after all, remains a collection of educated guesses and increasingly complex metaphors?the various forces and structures in nature described less in terms of what they actually are than in terms of the effects they have on the things around them. The accepted "facts" of physics and chemistry?even questions of how the human brain operates?are merely speculative at this point and can change radically at a moment's notice.

It's with all that in mind that I've come to the conclusion that my apartment is haunted.

I'm aware of at least a couple of people who have died in that building, and given how old it is, I wouldn't be surprised if there were several more who died there before I ever showed up. But they're not the issue, and I doubt I would even notice them if they were.

No, I'm pretty sure the ghost in question is Guy's. It's not like I've actually seen any spirits floating around?I hardly see anything at all in that place?but rather, like the weak force theoretical physicists talk about, I've seen the effects he's had on things around me.

Guy was a cat who lived with me for some 16 years before he passed away in January of this year. He was quite a beast, a massive creature with far too many toes, far too much heart and a winning personality. After he died, Morgan and I had him cremated, and his ashes have since rested in a stately cocktail shaker on my mantelpiece, right next to a small Godzilla figurine.

The signs of his continued (non-ashy) presence in the apartment might have been there from the beginning, though I never took them into account. My smaller cat, who's been with me even longer than Guy was and who never liked him, refused to climb up on the bed for months after his death. It was odd, given how much time she regularly spent there beforehand. Not only would she avoid the bed on her own, but if I picked her up and placed her there, she'd scream away into the other room.

Then I remembered that Guy had died in the bed, and I figured that maybe she could just smell death lingering about.

She got over that eventually, and in short order realized that she now had full run of the place. Started strutting around like cock of the walk, she did (and still does).

Maybe that's what did it, this new attitude of hers, because starting in late spring I believe it was, Guy's been much more obvious and blunt about his physical manifestations.

One Saturday morning in May, I walked into the front room to find that the floor by the bed was covered in water, or what I assumed at first to be water. Guessing that my extant cat had just thrown up, I grabbed some paper towels and began mopping. As I mopped, however, I soon realized that there was simply too much water?far more than her trim little body could hold. And besides, if she had puked up that much, I would have heard it. She's never been too demure when it comes to her puking.

Then I checked the ceiling, thinking maybe there had been a leak of some kind, but everything was dry. I checked the bed, and the nightstand, and they were dry too. No, whatever this was, it was very localized. Nothing around it had been touched?which was odd, given how much water there was. There was no indication of splashing, no indication of anything at all. It was as if it had simply appeared there.

Then I realized that it seemed to be centered around a spot on the floor where Guy had spent much of his last day?and many happy hours in the years prior. It was about then that the word "ectoplasm" occurred to me.

I don't know much about what constitutes ectoplasm or how it operates; all I know is that it's what ghosts are made of when they appear to the living. I couldn't find any other logical explanation for the puddle on the floor except that it was Guy ectoplasm, from a materialization that either failed, or that I missed.

Then he began appearing in my dreams. I realize dreams are pretty iffy when it comes to evidence of ghostly activity, but there he was. In the dreams I knew he was dead, but still saw him padding around the apartment. Even though I couldn't pet him, I took it as a sign that he was still around in some form. Even when I was awake, I kept catching glimpses of shadows and movement out of the corner of my eye?but with my eyes, that didn't really mean anything.

Then there was the smell. In late June, early July, I began to notice a pungent, unpleasant odor coming off the bed (Morgan noticed it first, actually?my sense of smell ain't what it should be). It smelled almost like piss. No, not "almost"?it smelled like piss, simple as that. Lord knows I hadn't wet the bed, so I blamed it immediately on my little cat. I washed the sheets and the quilt, but the smell wouldn't go away. It wasn't the cat's doing, either. Not the living one's, anyway.

Over time, again, I was able to isolate it to one corner of the bed. It was the same corner Guy was curled up in when he died. When he passed on, of course, all his muscles relaxed and his bladder emptied itself. I washed those sheets right away and had never noticed any smell?until now, six months after the fact.

Way I saw it, I hadn't been paying him enough attention there in the afterlife. After those first weeks of blubbering, he had become relegated to memory. Marking the bed that way from beyond the grave was his own, subtle way of forcing me to keep him in mind.

Odd thing was, after realizing this, I had a little chat with his ashes, and almost immediately afterward the odor faded away. The smell still comes back every now and again, but it seems all I have to do is pet his urn to make it go away.

It's very odd.

I took a quick glance on that internet and discovered there's an awful lot of sad, pitiful kooks out there, all of whom have posted stories about their own ghost cats. Thing is, their ghost cats do little more than brush against their former owners' legs at night, or stroll around peacefully. I didn't see a single account of one who pissed in the bed to get attention.

I realize I'm basing this all on some mighty flimsy evidence here, but to my mind, what other explanation could there possibly be?

Having a big ol' ghost around the apartment?whatever form it takes?doesn't really bother me. It's almost like having Casper around, except that I don't want to slug him. Except when he pisses on the bed.