I Bury My Mouse In Flowers
In the last days of their life, I spend a lot of time holding Hex. I feel as their body gets smaller and frailer and colder. On Christmas Day, between family gatherings, I hold them for half an hour. Their body is cold, their breathing is labored. Hardly a paw twitches. Later, I return to the room, in search of a board game to play after dinner and see them there, huddled in their nest, no longer breathing. I brush a thumb over their cold fur, their stiff body. I take Scattergories out to the living room and set it down. I find my wife in the kitchen, I tell them that Hex has died, and they hug me. On Tuesday, I feed the fatty fat girls--Thistle and Ghost--and my soul revolts as I put the lid back on the mouse food without having given a handful of seeds to Hex. Hex is gone but my bones don't know it yet--days later they still won't. On Tuesday morning, Hex's body is wrapped in a tissue and closed in a small cardboard box. Their cage looks just as they left it: a smatterin...