Rosie
Tiny skeletons littered the earth
beneath our house on stilts. I played by myself in this burial ground. My cat
Rosie would drag the bodies of her victims there. The bush rats she killed were
often bigger than she was. I was proud of her bravery in hunting only the
largest rats. She had a messy coat. It was a kaleidoscope of light yellowish
brown, dark brown, and black smudges. She was pretty, and she knew it. Like
most cats, her narcissism ran deep. When she would slide over me in the small
hours of the night, I would grab her and hold her tightly. She would attempt to
escape at first but would eventually start purring softly. Then I would relax
my grip and feel the love for her grow in the darkness as the wind toyed with
the trees outside. I felt so honored when, on rainy nights, she chose to lie
with me. On these cherished visits, I would lift the covers, and she would
crawl delicately under them and nestle in a ball between my bare legs. Her fur
was warm and comfortable. I would stay still and listen to the rain and her
soft purr.
I took her to
kindergarten to show her off. I didn’t ask my parents. My father didn’t notice
as I sat, invisible, in the back seat of our decaying car with my other
siblings, holding onto Rosie tightly as we puttered along the windy roads, the
engine growling in pain. It was a cold morning. The road was wet as we wound
our way between hills covered in ragged green trees still hiding under the
covers of darkness as the morning arched its sleepy back. We arrived at the bus
stop. From rusty car to rusty bus, I took my precious treasure. I felt her,
warm but tense, on my body. My toes stung from the chill in the air.
When I got to the classroom, I
relaxed my grip and lowered her to the ground so that other children could see
my prize. Rosie turned, eyes wide, ran out the open door, and jumped a tall
light brown wooden fence. Her fluffy tail disappeared. My heart dropped.
“Rosie!” I screamed.
Our teacher, Henning, with her long
angular arms and stern jawline, reached out and dragged me into her. I
struggled mightily, still in a panic, all the way back into the classroom, but
she held me to her bony chest until my will, like my heart, broke. I sat
sniffling as the other children, no longer entertained, walked away from me to
play. I had lost one of my few friends. She was mine and now she had gone.
A few days later, Rosie wandered
lazily back into the classroom. A wide smile spread across my face. I held her
tightly as we rode the grey, weathered bus, the old engine vibrating through my
happy body.
“I will never let anything bad happen
to you again,” I whispered to her through her thin ear.
She became a mother when she was a
little more than a kitten. We had tea chests for our luggage that had been
shipped over from England, light wooden boxes, one of which we set up as a bed
for her and her kittens. I watched as she wailed and pushed slimy sacks of life
onto our dirty floor, licked them to life, and placed them back into the
scrunched blankets. She was a better hunter than she was a mother, often spending a long
time away in the night while her kittens called for her blindly.
A few years into her life, when I
was 7, we noticed her moving sluggishly. She wouldn’t let us touch her.
“We need to take her to the vet,” my
big sister told my parents. Rosie disappeared. We found her days later in our
attic. It was a warm and dusty space where we had built a place to secretly
hide and watch television, which my mother did not allow because it was evil.
Rosie had crawled up there to be alone. My father finally took her to the vet.
Under her right armpit, she was hiding a nasty wound.
“Probably a possum or a bush rat,”
the vet informed us. He stitched her up, and we took her home. I made a bed for
her in front of our fire. I pushed the knob in that controlled the airflow. It
was sticky to move, the oilless mechanism making a squeaking sound. The embers
would burn through the night and keep her warm.
I awoke to heavy rain. I peeled the
covers away and jumped out of bed. I ran to the fire. The embers were glowing,
but Rosie’s bed was empty.
“Where is Rosie?” I asked my father.
“She died. I buried her out front.”
“I didn’t say goodbye!” I shouted in anger. I
ran outside. The rain was heavy, fat fingers drumming on my face. Rivers made
their way through new paths and formed puddles in nests of grass. I saw a fresh
cut in the ground. Muddy brown earth surrounded a square that had been dug into
the soil. I grabbed our rusty spade. The flap opened, revealing a slick surface
of clay—a clean cut. I dug as hot tears met with cold rain. She was buried
deep. I was tired. Sadness made me weak. I kept digging. Eventually, I saw the end of her tail. I
grabbed the sopping fur and felt a tiny chain of bones in my hand. I tried to
pull her out. The wet earth clung to her. I dug my heels into the cold ground
and pulled and pulled, but the mud and the rain would not let go of her body. I
lost the tug of war and collapsed. Tears pooled together with the rain in the
mud around the lifeless tail. I sat beside her until I ran out of tears.
“Goodbye Rosie,” I said. I closed my
eyes and imagined her soft fur against my skin. I thought of all those tiny
skeletons. She was now one of them. I listened to the rain for a while, rising
and falling, again and again, like a soft purr.
Robin J. Hall
Robin J. Hall is a
46-year-old father of three and has been published by Akashic Books, Shooter
Literary Magazine, Argyle Literary Magazine, The Coffee Shop Blues, and The
Huffington Post