The Evening He Died

The Evening He Died

 

It all began the evening Mr. Gray died on All Hallow’s Eve.  The creaking of the stairs, the shadows that appeared suddenly out of the corner of my eye disconcerted me worse than any panic attack I’d ever had and made me shutter with fear and disbelief.

Yet, all the shows I had watched on television said the dead come back when they die in an untimely manner as he certainly did.  He was lively for his age, always happy to receive us and share his adventures.  He loved to be out in the evenings, especially the cool ones so I wasn’t concerned when the weather turned to crisp, cool nights with frosty air.  I asked him often about his jaunts yet he never said much about them.

Then the evening his death occurred it appeared suddenly.  He seemed a bit slower than usual but that was all.  Then around eight o’clock I could see he was gasping for air clawing at the very chair he sat upon.  “There, there I said and patted him gently.”  I thought it was one of his spells when he consumed too much of his typical ingestions.  But his gasping became more pronounced and difficult to observe.

When he defecated himself, I realized the end was near but all I could do was watch helplessly as he slowly slipped away.   “Oh Mr. Gray,” I said as I looked at his eyes now ashen with death.

The next day as we dug a hole in the backyard, a neighborhood girl, not yet ten years of age, came out and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Digging a hole,” my husband replied calmly as though it were an everyday event. 

When we placed his body, now cold and stiff, in the hole we removed any material we had wrapped him in so he could return to the earth as we all do when our time comes.

That evening, when the creaks on the stairs began and the shadows crept around odd corners, I sat in my favorite leather chair and remembered his soft, warm body curled up in my lap and his gentle purr as I stroked his long gray fur and watched his tail sway in silver waves.

Reviews

[Paul Bell]

Fantastic. The six-foot hole just got smaller.
I'm feeling it for Mr. Grey. But for some reason, I still want a six-foot hole.

[Jennie Baron]

Aww... The story seemed very odd right up until the last sentence, which kept me reading to find out what it was all about. Then that last sentence brought back the pain of losing a pet. Very well written.

[Becky Villareal]

Thanks Jennie for the review. It was meant to throw the reader for a loop.