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Again - I didn't see the point to this story; the black cat was getting beaten up by the devil? But he kept putting him out there? Why didn't he just keep the cat in?

It was the devil who was 'out there' in the night.

I thought it was going to get interesting when he got out the night binoculars and ascertained it was the devil.

But it didn't get interesting at all.

I saw it a little differently, the black cat being the saviour of this family in essence because the Devil was "out" there but was on his way in. The moral dillemma being presented is, do we allow the cat to still save us night after night even though it is killing him? Or de we man up and just face them devil ourselves and most surely perish (without divine intervention of course). I like moral dillemmas so I did enjoy this one, but it was a bit short on development and was not particularly tied together well.

I appreciated the explanation in the Introduction about where this story came from -- that it was to be about an angel that was a cat or a cat that was an angel.

And the way it ends struck me as creepy.

I did wonder about the bad luck that happened for the four days while the cat was locked in the basement. Was that the cat/angel pressuring the human to let him out, or was that the devil "getting in" and making trouble in the cat/angel's absence?

I agree with you, tbarron. The end has a definite creep factor to it.

As for the bad luck... I think it was the devil getting into the details of the house while the cat was locked up. The cat couldn't protect them from inside the basement. He needed to be free to do that. So, while he was locked up, the devil started making mischief.

Of course, in wondering what the family did to deserve the cat, one must also wonder what they did to deserve the devil...

I agree with Krysondra about what happened while the cat was in the basement. While there is a certain level of Karmic destiny or even possibly a Karmic debt that could account for the family having drawn the attention of the devil, I see it as normal that we are all beset by the devil and the small things we do that are kind, like taking in and bedraggled old cat, preserves our chances of having an angel on our shoulder. This thing that we are drawing out with our questions and comments is the reason why I was disappointed that the story was not developed further.