Tag: death

There was a power failure the night that my mother died; adding insult to injury. Stumbling around in the dark looking for, matches, a candle, a glimmer of hope of ever feeling happy again seemed appropriate for our state of mind.

Attention is a click of heels, perfect creases, heads lifted, jaws set, and chests filled proudly with the hope of doing something good and right.
Four months later, heels click again, heads lift and jaws set as we wait for the gun salute in much shorter lines.

The chicken didn’t ponder long before venturing out into the heavy 5 o’clock traffic on the busiest road in this country town. All she had wanted was to get to the other side to feast on the sack of corn that had flown off of the feed truck, but she had not really considered, as is the way with chickens, that she might get squashed flat by a refrigerated truck on its way to the local Publix to deliver – what else – chickens.

He was only four feet shy of the air conditioner when he fell to the floor suffering from a heat stroke. It was that exact second in time that he realized he had wasted too many precious moments in his short thirty years of life.

A thousand and five thoughts were whirring through his head, among the most logical, number seventy seven was a wondering about only having felt his heart beat three times in the twenty seconds previous. Number fourteen was less rational considering the cirumstances, ‘pepperoni or capricciosa?’

He came into this world with a triumphant howl and as I cradled him in my arms I cried tears of joy. He left this this world for another realm and as I cradled his head once more I bent my head over him letting the tears of sorrow wash over his face.

When I was a child, hide-and-seek was my favourite game: I relished the thrill of being chased, and evading capture.

I killed him to keep that thrill alive, now the police are “it.”