Its Last Breaths

A Story by N.T. Ashen

A man accidentally causes a cat's death and feels enormous guilt. TW: slightly graphic descriptions of the cat's death.

Fell on a rebar, limped its way to the fence. Couldn’t get up. Laid down, bleeding, ‘till limp and soulless.

That’s what must have happened this morning. Red streaked across the unfinished patio. Red was painted on the dirt in a telling trail. Red was splotched on the back of the poor cat.

I wanted it to breathe. I wanted to feel its little heart beat. But it just lay, still as a rock. The big, black pupils stared ahead of me, unresponsive to my prodding. I thought her lack of movement was from shock, but when I shined a flashlight in her eyes, it did not move. It was just dead.

What else could I do? I struck down the remnants of the patio. I tore down the wood and metal, cursing it for causing so much agony to the cat, and for causing so much torture on me. Why did I not finish that patio earlier? My laziness amounted to nothing but pain. If I hadn’t postponed the patio�"

I encased the cat in a little box and dug a little grave. Before I covered the makeshift hearse with dirt, I opened the lid a bit. I hoped she would jump out, annoyed at the big man who shoved her in a box. It didn’t move at all from whence I saw her. Dead, then. Truly, truly, dead. I covered the coffin again and buried it under loose dirt.

No matter how much I showered and soaped my body, I couldn’t get the smell of rot out of my nose. The fresh aroma of the clean soap was nothing to the filth of the dirty cat. The droplets of water washed away the blood on my arms and legs, but I swear, after drying myself, I still saw little spots of blood on my body, little dots like a pointillist artwork, little circles scattered as a fresh reminder of what happened.

The spots blinded me. I could not talk to another being, for I feared they would see what I had done. I’m not mad�" just afraid! Afraid that someone would come by and ask to see their cat. Afraid that a litter of kittens would wait, endlessly, for their mother to come back. Oh, how awful I am!

I escaped to a fantasy, believing that the cat was not, in fact, dead. I imagined a future where it survived its wounds and left from my hellish garden to somewhere, to its loved ones. The naive optimism helped me to cook food and move on for a little while.

However, that same night�" it was brutal; sleeping was impossible. When I closed my eyes, I could hear that little thing breathe; I could feel its eyes moving, staring towards me; I could feel its tiny heart beat. I turned myself to the other side, but the signs of life distracted me endlessly.

I wished that, before it took its last breath, I could give it a tasty fish. It would have died anyway, I’m sure. But, maybe, I wouldn’t feel so sick, had I given it one last meal. If its family rebuked me, I could describe that its death wasn’t so pathetic. If I was exposed for letting a cat die, I could paint myself as a tragic, yet kind savior who comforted the cat in its last moments. If I went to hell, I could reach out to God, fish in hand, begging to ascend with proof of my virtue. And maybe, he would have reached out to me and pulled me out from my eternal punishment. This one good deed would have saved me.

But my imagination did not come true, despite how much I indulged in my dream.

There, on the soft bed, I lay as still as the dead cat, trying to shoo away the horrors in my mind. But those thoughts raced on.

If it had a family, cat or human, they’re looking for a rotting cadaver.

Maybe I could have saved it, had I investigated the meowing sooner instead of resigning myself to the tv.

Maybe I would not feel so ill if I had finished building that stupid patio.

Then�" a miracle happened. I could hear and feel those tiny signs of life again. Most prominent was the heart beat. The faint heartbeat. The thump in my ear… it was not in my head. It was coming from outside. I rushed to my garden, leaving the blankets on the floor and almost smashing my head on the door. Outside, I trampled some flowers and snapped a sapling’s weak frame in half. It was a regrettable loss, but the possibility of rescuing the cat surpassed the small guilt I held for the tree. I could hear its tiny heart beat from the ground. It was still alive in the little box I put it in!

I grabbed a shovel and started digging. Finally, I was free! Fault could not be placed onto me, for the little critter was still alive. For every mound of dirt I dug, its heart beat louder, louder! I dug until I could lift the box away and released the cat out in my garden.

Be free! I shouted. I must have looked like a fool for a minute. The beating stopped, and the cat lay limp. Its eyes were as big and lifeless as it was this morning. There was naught left but rotting flesh.

I stood there. Standing dumb. Spots of blood still splotched on my skin. The horrid stench invaded my nose once again.

That was the moment I fell to the ground.

Amongst the destroyed patio, trampled plants, and rotting cat, my own body retreated to a happier time, when the cat was still alive, when my garden was not in such a disarray. I relived the fantasy of the fish again with its cute, little face nibbling on the filet in my hands, and its paws reaching out to shake mine. I reached back, reaching towards my salvation. But it was impossible to absolve myself.

There was no fish, and there was no saving me from my shame.

If I died here, nothing outside this house would change. The mess in my garden is insignificant to the mechanical workings of the world. No one cares about this cat more than I, and, I suppose, no one cares about me either. If I died here, the cogs of the world would continue to spin, exactly as it had done when the cat left this Earth.