The night the cat roared.

Y'see that kitty-cat napping out there, rockin', swaying in she sleep? And when she wake up, she lap-lap-lap?

Yeah, many a sunrise-morning, I would stand on the sea-wall and stare out at she, and I think how we ocean is a cute li'l kitty, lappin' an' playin' skippety-friskily with cokanut shells and drift wood and leaves.

That is not to say I don't know she can be a beast. I see it on the news, what she do to other countries. But for peace of mind, I does fool meself that she would come to shore here like a' old pet strolling, long brown fur fluttering, edged with frilly white.

In fact, I thought she was strolling one evening last week when I smell the brine. It was such a groovy smell - fish and corals, romance and yachts and sailing to me dreams.

Ha! Salt me in the sun like cod-fish, tell me I am mad like shad! (I am being jokey like this because if I don't pretend to laugh, I would cringe with fear like the skin-and-bones creature that used to be a dawg until somebody abandon it on the sea-side of the wall).

That evening last week, I look out the windows and what do I see?

Water in we street, in we driveway, thick and dark in the night, looking very much like the elusive oil the drillers been searching for out there, digging and up heaving the seabed.

Further north, past the roads, over the wall, water rising mo' high than I ever see in all me whole life growing up here.

Water dashing into the air like thousands o' wild cats big like elephants.

"Did you take a photo?" I ask my dear Irish auntie, across the road from me, mo' close to the sea.

"I couldn't bear to do that," she reply with a tremor in she voice. "It was higher than last year."

Last year, in February, March or April, I don't remember when, I didn't see the animal rise up in the night, but I did see the message it leave under we house next morning. Thick-thick, glossy mud like grey-brown icing-sugar glazing the entire yard.

This year, the mud was mo' thick.