One time, I was hiding a cat. It started to bleed from its mouth and ears. I didn’t know why. My parents didn’t know I had a cat. I couldn’t take him to the vet. I was 7. I hated hearing his pained cries, distorted and broken by blood.
So I shoved him in my closet.
I could still hear it, though, ever so faintly. So I hid under the covers with a pillow over my head, hoping my own sobs would drown the scratch-record thing out. Maybe it did, and maybe I just heard a reflection in my mind. Or maybe it didn’t. I screwed my eyes up and hoped that maybe the sea of sheets and tears will blind me from the image of the poor, innocent Kitten, with blood making his fluffy fur sticky, pouring down from his fragile ears, flowing from his open mouth…
The next morning it was silent. It was dead. Everyone was at work. So I wrapped him in a towel. And buried it. There was no tombstone, because I hadn’t had it long enough to name it. I washed my hands, and my parents didn’t know.
If I listen real close…I think that night was imprinted on my ears, because I can hear his confused whines, broken from blood…