Furry Comma

21st November 2012 Wednesday

This morning I find water dripping down the walls in the utility room. Plastic roof leaking. All the boxes of the pussy cat food are sodden. And the wooden picture frame. Our builder can’t come till next week and doesn’t know which day. The lawn looks like a lake.

Later the sun comes out briefly and my husband takes a spade out of the shed and digs a squarish hole in the ground at the bottom of the garden under the trellis by the compost heap. He strikes roots of climbing rose and honeysuckle and clumps of sticky red clay but we decide it will be deep enough for our pussy cat in his box. I imagine him curled up inside it like a sleeping furry comma. It feels surreal to be doing this.

Tonight I leave the fire on by his bed. My husband nearly blows out the tall razor shell  candle which has been burning on the kitchen windowsill for two days, but I stop him in time. My brother gave us this candle and I want to keep it alight for our pussy cat -  to honour him -   till it’s time for him to go.

Tomorrow evening. I wish he would die in his sleep tonight. Then the rain pounding on the plastic roof, splashing off the walls, won’t keep him awake. And I won’t have to go through the day knowing it’s his last and is it the right thing to do.....