Something behind the door...

I'm back from Kentucky. I miss it already and wish there were some way to be both here and there at the same time. When I first got to Kentucky I told my mom at the airport that I'd written about her house and the raccoon. She said "Well, there's something else in the pantry now. " She said she didn't know what it is, but it sounds too big to be a mouse, squirrel or rat...maybe it's the other raccoon. They were only able to catch one of them. But she said you can hear it rummaging around in there, and when you go to open the door you can hear it frantically trying to scramble away, little paws making scraping noises as it tries to catch its footing and run before the door is opened. She said she always gives it a minute to escape before she opens the door. So I was instantly curious.

For the whole visit I listened for the thing in the kitchen pantry. And for the whole visit, the pantry was silent. I had the room right next to it, so perhaps hearing me moving around at all hours (when left on my own, I revert to my old ways of staying up until dawn, or later). But on the second to the last day of my visit, I heard it. Well, first I heard the squirrels in the attic running around. They were also dragging something. Maybe insulation or clothing, because it sounded like a blanket sliding across the ceiling. Soon after, I heard noises coming from the pantry.

At first I thought it was my mom searching for something in there, until I remembered she said she doesn't go in there anymore. So I got up, grabbed my camera, and approached the pantry door. As I turned the knob, I heard frantic scrambling, like a plump body falling over itself and slipping on boxes to get away. I must confess: I hesitated before flinging open the door. At the last minute I got this image of opening the door too fast, panicking the creature, and it now feeling cornered and with no other choice but to leap for my face in self defense. So by the time I opened the door it had vanished, leaving in it's wake a pile of violated boxes with their contents strewn all over the carpet. Not sure if the creature was huddled in an unseen hole somewhere amongst the boxes, I snapped a quick picture of the inside of the pantry (this is the above photo) and shut the door again, leaving it to continue with what it was doing.