There is something about cats that makes you ponder the uncanny.
In “The Return of Dr. Thunder,” Kellie Hamilton shares the story of how one cat traveled from Texas to North Carolina to the Great Beyond. And then, possibly, back again.
We love the quirky humor of this story, and the gentle way that the narrator approaches it. The cat’s owner later said that he felt silly revealing his belief in reincarnated pets, but as the ending shows, he’s not the only one out there wondering if his cat is a part of something larger—some vast unknown, a cosmic cattery we can only glimpse.
“Whether a lot of us admit it or not, many of us have a similar sense of having known a person or a pet before,” says Kellie. “To have somebody who’s willing to go into it and talk about it—to me, that was a gift.”
Kellie lives on a small farm in Rougemont with her husband, son and daughter. In addition to producing audio stories, Kellie works as a technical writer, project manager, equestrian, donkey breeder and fainting goat broker.
For her next assignment, she’s collecting stories of vacations gone awry. Email your tales of airport misadventures and other lost-in-translation moments to audiounderthestars@gmail.com and we’ll pass them along.
Audio Under the Stars is an outdoor community listening party. Each summer, we curate a monthly playlist of interesting, funny, or otherwise compelling audio stories around a specific theme, and invite everyone to join us to share them under the stars. We welcome great stories from all over, but some of our favorites have a local flavor. Many are produced by the audiophiles at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. We welcome submissions or ideas at audiounderthestars@gmail.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter @AudioStars.
