VeronicaWest
04-25-2014, 10:18 PM
The last one died some time between 12 and 3 AM. I didn’t cry this time. Applesauce was it’s name, because of the white mark on the head. When you name something you take ownership of it, at least in part—a personal interest at least. I cried more over these three baby mice then when my own dog died. Granted there was a disconnect there. When it happened I was already living with Ed for almost three years and barely saw her anymore. Did I cry because they were babies? Because I was responsible? Or not responsible? The problem with an anxiety prone brain is that every mistake or just negative happening is over analyzed. Did they get too cold because we put the fan on. Did we not feed them enough. Did we get milk—that fake milk, kitten milk—into their small bodies. Their lungs swollen like a peach before it hits the ground and lays and lays till rot overcomes. They are little peaches that will never grow again. I dump the remainder of the kitten formula down the drain and can feel the rush in my eyes again.
There are small things I notice throughout the day because you notice these things when you'd rather think about anything but where you are. Like the sign between the bathroom stalls in my office building. Please do not flush paper towels down the toilet. So you think this has to have happened enough times that someone finally had to make up this gold plaque, etched with black letters. So serious was the paper towel flushing. Maybe one day the toilets overflowed and nearly drowned all the sad people in the building. To drown in toilet water would be a very sad thing. In the office the only reminder that life is not just white walls and computer screens is the slots of light that peel through the conference room across from my desk. I brought the mice to work on the third day. The last day. I thought it was the only way. I could slip out every couple hours to bottle feed them their false milk and check that they were still skittering the way mice do.
The next day I got a ticket because my inspection sticker was expired by two months. They had a mobile inspection station set up for us delinquents. Maybe I should have told him my pets died last night. I would call them pets. It would be vague enough but relate-able. Most people don't like mice. Ed's brother looked at them like they were walking cubicles of bacteria. So I would call them pets and maybe he'd take pity. Poor girl, red swollen peach pit eyes. People don't really look into the eyes of their casual encounters. Not unless they are really trying to prove something. Two men checked my headlights, brake lights, blinkers. They plugged something in beneath the steering wheel, scraped my old inspection sticker off with a piece of metal. I watched him do it like it was such as offense. The way he rushed. The routine-ness. He pasted the new sticker on a little too far to the right so I could still see the streaky remnants of the last one. This annoyed me. And then the thing itself. Stronger than the storm it said. That ****ing tag line that will not go away ever. I love New Jersey, but Jesus. On the way to work I kept staring at the thing. The light house. The patriotic colors. One hundred and twenty six dollars to have my windshield raped. I was forty minutes late and didn't care.
I held them and watched them die. What was I to do? Their bodies slowed like trying to swim in ice water. First the legs stiffened, dragged along like a fence posts. The small gasps like a fire choking under wet leaves.
We buried them at the base of a tree by the chicken coop. Sometimes I think how I would react if they died too—the shock like young seedlings in an April snowfall. It's not supposed to snow in April. But it did. The plants are brown now. Not crunchy, dead leaves, but a tinge in the veins. Deep brown like an earthen tomb, the cold dampness that doesn't shake. The cars the next morning are dusted with pearite pellets. Some patches of grass as well soak white, a reminder.
My mother always tries to save lost things. Our backyard is grave site. There was the squirrel run over in front of the house. The chipmunk popped as a water balloon by the stray cat. The sparrow with the broken wing. How many times can one person fail before they give up. She found a stray cat when walking the development and took it in.
“Want to take Benedryl and go to sleep?”
I paused. “Okay.”
We went into Steve's room—that's Ed's brother, the mouse hater—as he was the one with the goods. Ed searched the bright orange desk drawers.
“He finally put one of his paintings up,” I noted, looking at the mock starry night picture. “I guess he's getting settled.” People don't hang things on the walls unless they are planning on being around a while.
I found a Bob Dylan poster last week when pulling the summer clothes from the wood trunk at the foot of the bed. I wanted summer so bad, even if she didn't want me. I ached to taste the sweat and dirt and feel my skin flush. “Together Through Life” it said. I hung it on the wall with a couple of those sticky black squares. It's not as committal as a nail it the wall, but I hate the thought of leaving holes. The calendar falls down in the middle of the night after it's weight has become too much for the small white tack supporting it, and I am forced to puncture a new area. Just a small hole, but enough. Through every hole something seeps in or slips out. A wispy thing, a shallow breath.
There are small things I notice throughout the day because you notice these things when you'd rather think about anything but where you are. Like the sign between the bathroom stalls in my office building. Please do not flush paper towels down the toilet. So you think this has to have happened enough times that someone finally had to make up this gold plaque, etched with black letters. So serious was the paper towel flushing. Maybe one day the toilets overflowed and nearly drowned all the sad people in the building. To drown in toilet water would be a very sad thing. In the office the only reminder that life is not just white walls and computer screens is the slots of light that peel through the conference room across from my desk. I brought the mice to work on the third day. The last day. I thought it was the only way. I could slip out every couple hours to bottle feed them their false milk and check that they were still skittering the way mice do.
The next day I got a ticket because my inspection sticker was expired by two months. They had a mobile inspection station set up for us delinquents. Maybe I should have told him my pets died last night. I would call them pets. It would be vague enough but relate-able. Most people don't like mice. Ed's brother looked at them like they were walking cubicles of bacteria. So I would call them pets and maybe he'd take pity. Poor girl, red swollen peach pit eyes. People don't really look into the eyes of their casual encounters. Not unless they are really trying to prove something. Two men checked my headlights, brake lights, blinkers. They plugged something in beneath the steering wheel, scraped my old inspection sticker off with a piece of metal. I watched him do it like it was such as offense. The way he rushed. The routine-ness. He pasted the new sticker on a little too far to the right so I could still see the streaky remnants of the last one. This annoyed me. And then the thing itself. Stronger than the storm it said. That ****ing tag line that will not go away ever. I love New Jersey, but Jesus. On the way to work I kept staring at the thing. The light house. The patriotic colors. One hundred and twenty six dollars to have my windshield raped. I was forty minutes late and didn't care.
I held them and watched them die. What was I to do? Their bodies slowed like trying to swim in ice water. First the legs stiffened, dragged along like a fence posts. The small gasps like a fire choking under wet leaves.
We buried them at the base of a tree by the chicken coop. Sometimes I think how I would react if they died too—the shock like young seedlings in an April snowfall. It's not supposed to snow in April. But it did. The plants are brown now. Not crunchy, dead leaves, but a tinge in the veins. Deep brown like an earthen tomb, the cold dampness that doesn't shake. The cars the next morning are dusted with pearite pellets. Some patches of grass as well soak white, a reminder.
My mother always tries to save lost things. Our backyard is grave site. There was the squirrel run over in front of the house. The chipmunk popped as a water balloon by the stray cat. The sparrow with the broken wing. How many times can one person fail before they give up. She found a stray cat when walking the development and took it in.
“Want to take Benedryl and go to sleep?”
I paused. “Okay.”
We went into Steve's room—that's Ed's brother, the mouse hater—as he was the one with the goods. Ed searched the bright orange desk drawers.
“He finally put one of his paintings up,” I noted, looking at the mock starry night picture. “I guess he's getting settled.” People don't hang things on the walls unless they are planning on being around a while.
I found a Bob Dylan poster last week when pulling the summer clothes from the wood trunk at the foot of the bed. I wanted summer so bad, even if she didn't want me. I ached to taste the sweat and dirt and feel my skin flush. “Together Through Life” it said. I hung it on the wall with a couple of those sticky black squares. It's not as committal as a nail it the wall, but I hate the thought of leaving holes. The calendar falls down in the middle of the night after it's weight has become too much for the small white tack supporting it, and I am forced to puncture a new area. Just a small hole, but enough. Through every hole something seeps in or slips out. A wispy thing, a shallow breath.