“PLUTO THE BLACK AND GREY CAT” by Lilly ©
A past life story about World War II
Marianne Notschaele-den Boer, past life therapist & writer of books
about past lives and reincarnation
© RHA Publishing
Girl with cat
1940 – painted by Van der Berg Belgium
You can read the introduction to Lilly’s story
here: "The driving force was fear"
PLUTO THE BLACK AND GREY CAT – a WW2 past life
story, by Lilly©
“Once upon a time
there was a little girl, she lived a happy life until her parents brought her
home a tiny little cat, after which the little girl became even happier. The
little cat was grey and black and the little girl promptly named him Pluto.
Pluto and the little girl became inseparable. Whenever she went into the fields
not far away from her house, Pluto came with her. Often, she would wrap him up
in an old headscarf or an old blanket and carry him with her when she went on
her long walks. Later, when Pluto had learned how to walk properly, he would
follow her wherever she went. Whereas this would have bothered most people, the
little girl wasn’t bothered by this, on the contrary. She would talk to Pluto,
knowing full well that he understood everything that she was saying, even
though people and especially the grown ups would tell her the contrary. Pluto
was her best and only friend, her steady companion. When she lay in the fields
of her peaceful village, looking at the sky above and watching the clouds
change, dreaming of far away places, she would tell Pluto all about it and she
knew, that her steady little companion, lying there quietly beside her,
understood every word that she said, even those that weren’t said. She loved
the village and the peace and quiet, loved watching the farmers go through the
fields with their horses and the same horses, or sometimes different ones, trot
down the street later, pulling all sorts of carts.
“One day,” she told
her companion, Pluto, “we will go away, far away from here and we will never
come back. I love this place but it will never stay the same and soon it will
change and we will go to the big city even though none of us want to go.”
Evil people
The big city was a
constant theme in her little mind. For although she was only eight, she knew
there was a big, wide world out there, and the world was calling to her. The
big city wasn’t the capital of their country but in another place, somewhere
out West. She had sometimes heard her parents talk about it. It was the city in
which they spoke the language her father loved to speak, that he sometimes
spoke when he came over on one of his visits, when he wasn’t busy composing
music. The big city where people always danced, in a country she called The Big
Mystery. The little girl knew of this country because that was, despite the big
lovely city, where the Evil People lived. The Evil People were worse than the monsters hiding underneath her
bed because the monsters were something only she could see but even the grown ups
in her little world were scared of The Evil People. Sometimes, when she was
supposed to be asleep, and crept close enough to the living room door, she
could hear them talk in the middle of the night, and even though she only
understood very little in the strange language they had suddenly decided to
speak, her father and his friends, she could intuit the fear and the danger
they felt. She was trying to figure out what it was they proposed to do amidst
the drinking and occasional shouting, when she felt something rub against her
feet, Pluto, her constant companion.
“Go away,” she said
sternly, perhaps too sternly but she had vowed to always protect him and these
new dangers her father and his friends had suddenly begun speaking of, were too
abstract for her to see. All she knew from the way the men banded together and
from their agitated voices, was that there was danger ahead, clear and imminent
danger and she would do everything in her power to at least keep Pluto from
hearing it. When she snuck into the room they both shared together, she bent
down to kiss him gently on his little forehead and he turned away in his sleep.
Black and grey
The following
morning The Evil People came. They wore black and grey from top to bottom and
they had guns, and knocked down the doors. They told the little girl and her
parents, that they all had to leave, that the entire village had to leave. They
could take a little piece of luggage with them and they had ten minutes to pack
but they would have to leave when the Evil People came back. They went from
house to house like that. The little girl’s mother quickly threw some things
together and marched her family out of the house. The little girl kept
clutching Pluto to her chest all the way to the village square. There they were
told that they would have to march up the hill because from now on they would
live in the fortress. She had seen the fortress many times and often she had
told little Pluto stories of it. One day, she had said, we will all live there
and then we will go to that big city in the Land of Mystery.
“You see,” she said
clutching little Pluto to her chest as tightly as she could without crushing
him, “we’re going to the fortress after all, like I told you that we would be.”
Little Pluto said
nothing but merely looked at her out of his big brown eyes, not wanting to show
any of the fear he was fearing himself. He too had overheard the men talk and
had heard his father (for that is how he had come to think of the little girl’s
family) tell him, “whatever happens, you must stay strong, you must never under
any circumstances show even the slightest trace of fear.” So little Pluto,
because he loved the little girl more than life itself, decided that he would
be brave just for her.
Fortress
And it was a good
thing this bravery because the fortress was not at all how she had imagined it,
how she had said it would be in all of her stories, each of which he had
despite his three years, understood. There were no candles shining in the
windows at night and no “rooms larger than Farmer Seidl’s field” as his sister
had described. But merely rows upon rows of beds with people sleeping in them
and things crawling around that made you start itching and twitching.
Sometimes, as the little girl had said, there was music but not everyone was
allowed to listen to it and when they did because some sounds drifted through
the walls of the entertainment venue when he and his sister walked past, they
were so sad and beautiful and haunting that despite their beauty he just wanted
to hurry away. Sometimes, he too, thought of the Big City in The Land of
Mystery, from where the Evil People came but he couldn’t see the same thing
that his sister could see. And the priest who spoke of the other Kingdom in the
fortress, the one they would soon see, he wasn’t of much help either, though
his sister seemed to like him. But he didn’t or couldn’t see what his sister
saw in him.
The man that scared
him more than the village priest, that scared them all, even though his sister
was trying to hide it from him (and also, if truth be told he from her, for he
remembered his father’s words every day of the week, despite not seeing his
father: why would you give someone the satisfaction of showing them that you’re
scared) showed up on a cold winter’s day. Technically, and he knew that because
his sister told him repeatedly, it was still fall, November was in the fall but
it felt like winter, with the snow on the ground and everyone’s breath visible
for all and sundry to see. She agreed when he told her that and said that from
now on for the two of them November would always be winter. That winter didn’t
start on December 21 but on November 22, the date on which the Blond Man
appeared.
Fear: the tall blond man
The people he and
his sister shared a room with, were told to line up in front of the train
station at 7 a.m. sharp. His sister, mindful of their previous expedition when
they had been forced to leave their village and their homes, wrapped an old
grey coat around him and told him never under any circumstances should he take
it off. The Blond Man was very tall and very scary. He, too, like his sister
was dressed in black but the man’s clothes were warm. Around his shoulders
there was a gun, and at his feet a dog, a big snarling dog. Pluto was very
scared of dogs, especially big feral German Shepherds and so he retreated as
far away as he could behind his sister. A man, who had been standing with them,
waiting, hoping, expecting, positioned himself slightly closer to them. But it
was too late, the Tall Blond Scary Man, clearly one of the Evil People, had
noticed him. Just as Pluto stopped marvelling at the man’s quiet way of
scanning the assembled (as if, Pluto thought to himself but didn’t say anything
for fear of attracting the Evil Man’s attention, he was looking for something,
as if he’s looking for me), the man turned and looked straight at the two of
them. Trying to be brave, like his father had told him to be, he lifted his
little chin and looked straight ahead, straight into the Evil Man’s eyes. When
the big man came over, he nearly died inside but despite that, he stood his
ground and didn’t flinch.
“You,” the man
barked, looking straight at Pluto. “Over there.”
Over there meant by
the train. As the man hadn’t looked at his sister, Pluto knew that the Evil Man
didn’t want her to go. And he
couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from his sister, so he pretended not
to hear, hoping that perhaps the man would tire of the game and walk away,
humans, aside from his sister, had strange behavioural patterns sometimes. But
when he had asked his older sister about that, she had merely told him that she
didn’t quite comprehend it yet herself but as soon as she found out, she would
tell him what she knew.
But the man didn’t
seem to tire of the game. In fact he seemed mad that he hadn’t obeyed him.
Pluto thought of a word he had heard his sister use the other day, something
she had learned in class (for there was school there but unlike in real life
school, here they liked being in class), incensed. The man strode over to them
and grabbed little Pluto by the scruff of his neck, all three years of him, and
unceremoniously lifted him unto the train. (*)
Suddenly,
everything seemed to happen at once. The minute the Tall Blond Evil Man grabbed
Pluto by the scruff of his neck, his sister threw herself at him, kicking at
him and lashing out at him, her light frame and shivering body (for she too was
only wearing a light dress) no match against his warm clothes and protection. And yet she was beating
and kicking and screaming at him to let her brother off or at least let her go
with him. Someone inside the train was trying to turn Pluto away from it but he
twisted away because, hard as it was, he had to see. The Tall Blond Man easily
and expertly blocked her path, not letting her anywhere near the train. His
eyes, as he stared down at her were full of intense hatred, a hatred so hard
that it made Pluto shrink back and cry inside. But he also wanted to let the
man know that this was only one life time, that he was remembering it wrong,
that there was and had even been more to it. But he couldn’t. The Tall Blond
Evil Man had taken out a riding crop and even though he could have just flung
her off, making her fall to the ground, he beat her on the head with it
repeatedly until she fell to the ground.
Darkness
At this, the man
who had inched closer to them, suddenly broke away from the crowd and launched
himself at the Tall Blond Man. The gun shot that fell, sounded in the quiet
courtyard, just as more of the Mystery Men slid shut the doors of the train and
there was nothing else but darkness. Pluto didn’t see that the Tall Blond Evil
Man kicked his sister in the head as he left, believing her to be dead. Nor did
he see the woman who came away from the crowd, who quietly slipped out of line
when they were told that after all they were allowed to go back to their
quarters, picking up his sister with gentle, tender care, carrying her back to
the quarters, nor did he know that this very same woman, because his sister was
tough and resilient, managed to nurse her back to health, staying with her all
through the night, administering treatment, even going so far as to risk her
life in stealing some extra bandages and bread and once even some jam.
Little Pluto
rattling away into the night, towards the East, wasn’t aware of that and the
last thing he remembered were the Tall Blond Evil Man’s eyes. Because as he had
lifted him up onto the train, just before he had let go of him, the man had
looked into his little brown eyes as well. And there Pluto had seen, for the
instance of one fraction of a nano second the sadness and sorrow and pain in
the man’s blue-grey eyes. As if the man had wanted to say, sorry little buddy but it has to be. Go, go and come back to be the man
that you were meant to be, go now and let your sister, too, go in peace.”
Lilly ©
(*) In writing the painful story of her past live, Lilly
gave the cat an important role because it was in fact her little brother where
she was writing about.
Marianne
Notschaele-den Boer/RHA Publishing
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Past Lives Stories & Therapy in Dutch: http://www.vorigelevens.nl
Another story in English about past lives: Woman who had a vision about the
sinking of the Titanic - past life
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Marianne Notschaele-den Boer/Copyright
Lilly©RHA Publishing, February2010