As the afternoon wore on I became aware of a presence in the room, something was watching me....A shaft of light pierced the overshadowed window and illuminated the unsettling, staring face of a cat rising from the Stygian gloom that submerged the bulk of my surroundings. The cat stared unblinking at me from beside a slowly swaying branch of the drooping Christmas tree moving gently in and out of the light. The branch hung its head, weighed down by the almost insupportable weight of a shining plastic bauble, it's faded, spent jollity like a reproach. Somewhere near the boundary of my perceptions I seemed to hear a whisper,"....Twelfth Night!.....Twelfth Night!...beware!....beware!..." The cat stared intensely on and it's otherwordly focus became intolerably strange and foreboding. What horrors would I unleash if I failed to remove these inappropriate tinsels and fripperies before midnight on Twelfth Night! As I tore the garlands from the walls, scattered glass and plastic globes to the four winds and tried desperately to escape the throttling tangle of strings of twinkling lights I heard the clock clatter on remorselessly toward the witching hour....click...clack....click....clack....and the cat stared on....