yes, in my palm

"All good things must come to an end." -Someone who forgot the rest of it.

One thing, my vacation, has just ended. It has gone the way of All Things.

This end, the end of the vacation, was expected. But things don't always end when we expect them to end. For example: life. Life ends all the time suddenly and without warning. I've said it so much and for so long that it's trite to me, but it still needs saying. Especially for those of us who like to forget about the punctuation at the end of the sentence. That's most of us. I'm pretty sure it is, anyway, based on the shock I've witnessed in this bizarre culture of kitty transplants that I wade through. I'm getting wordy. Let me stop.

My cat died while I was on vacation. It happened exactly halfway through my trip. I didn't know he was sick before I left, and he's already dead and buried before I'm back. This is either the best or the worst way it could have happened. Maybe both. I believe in paradox.



How he went and that there wasn't a proper goodbye isn't what's real to me. What's real is him being gone. The absence of life. Of love. Of something good.

Something fills in after the vacuum of End leaves.



I've been imagining him 1/10th his size since he left this world, living in the palm of my hand: fuzzy little killing machine of my daydreams. Every time I see something that deserves an attack or is otherwise interesting, I let him go for it.

Thus far, I've set him loose on stiff-legged beach birds, pigeons in the park, and small children that look too happy.

He does well.