Today I sat with my friend and his dead bird on a musky sofa that must’ve been from the 70’s. The thick unmistakable sent of sweet sticky weed peeled from the walls like old wall paper, neither appealing nor offensive. It simply was. The ease of conversation about the day’s inconveniences mildly distracted me from the surrealism of it all, which perched on the nape of my neck as a tick might, leeching any form of intelligence as to how to go about handling such a situation. There he was, Charlie, wrapped in a dark blue towel. He rested, encased, balanced upon the arm of the couch, as if he were just a piece of laundry that had separated from the rest of the wash. It isn’t the same when a pet dies. Life simply carries on.



A slight burn seemed to tingle in my throat as I watched him pour himself another thimble full of bourbon. The numbing quality seemed to affect the room with its mere presence. His glass seemed oddly in place with the half dozen soda cans strewn about the coffee table. His bowl, dark and twisted, rested casually amongst them. Brief utterances of a burial occasionally floated to the top of the conversation, but were quickly skimmed off. An Amazon box was chosen and tomorrow Charlie’s physical form shall be packaged and shipped into a rusted dumpster for Thursday’s trash collectors to handle. Talk of potato salad and work schedules continued as if the day were any other. I suppose that’s the only way to handle the death of a pet. Charlie was here, and now he isn’t, and life carries on. This is not new. This is not the first and will not be the last. His absence will go utterly undetected by most everyone.