A small House on a City Street

A small house on a city street; unimpressive with stained and peeling paint. A rusted swing set sits in the back yard, rocking slowly back and forth in the autumn breeze. A leaf falls slowly, an elegant and graceful death, as beautiful as sad. The sun is a splash of orange paint on the hilly horizon, casting long shadows on the brown grass. The house echoes with the sound of a gerbil running in its wheel, a metallic racket attempting to fill the silence.

The living room looks out onto the empty street - tarred black and stained deep red. The carpet in the living room is lush and green, a verdant forest of nylon below the sky-blue walls. The television is on quietly; multicolored glows flooding the room as characters whisper to recorded laughter. Salty rain falls on the forest from the giant sitting over the toy car, just pulled from underneath a chair. She sobs as warm arms encircle her, pain turned into sounds agonizing to hear.

The arms leave after a while, to place mementos in cardboard boxes, taping them up with loving care, but the pain stays; a tear in the soul. Eventually it dog-ears itself back together, a poor substitute, but a beginning. She helps him pack their belongings: the lipstick, cologne, the bras and boxer shorts. The relics from Disneyland; faded Mickeys and broken Goofys smiling inanely despite their injuries.

She does not pack the child's room, leaving that to her husband as she starts to place boxes in the car.

As they drive, words try and fail to distract her, to keep her from picking at the scabs of her soul. She pays little attention to her dress, currently wedged firmly in the door, restraining her. Rows of two story houses stand at attention, a line of silent mourners. Turning down the winding streets, past foreboding monuments, gray spires and rectangles jutting from the hallowed earth, and the wound rips open in her soul, pouring forth the sorrow of a son lost while almost in reach.

Bearded face turns to try to help ease the sorrow as a yip pierces the air, and a thump vibrates through the seats. They stop the car and examine the broken fur bundle lying in the street, feeling the pain of similarity.

She grasps the slowly cooling body and holds it, her tears splashing softly on the black and white coat: the baptism it never had in life. Wind whisks around her as she carries it to the grave of her son, the earth still turned and raised above the ground. The body is arranged with honest care: two like souls in the afterlife.

She walks back to the car, taking care to not catch her dress in the door.