Yes, we have a part of the house called the “shanty.” It fits.

My first thought was that it was Brutus; I still forget he’s not alive any more. As soon as I remembered that it could not have been him, I figured we’d caught another mouse.

Again, we call it the shanty for a reason.

Friday, shortly after arriving home, mom found a salamander in the mouse trap. Because I am loathe to see one die, I removed it and carried it outside to the damp ground where it promptly crawled away. I am familiar with the Trap Rescue procedure.

I easily found the mouse, pinched in the trap. It was lying amidst the clutter of three mouse traps — fine, the shanty is a sieve — near the base of the 5,000 year old International Harvester deep freeze which, though it had worked well since before my time, had given up the ghost about a year and a half ago. It remained in the shanty, since I think the place was probably built around the behemoth.

Anyway, there was the mouse. It was belly up, head and neck in the trap. I figured it was dead, even if I had come across it shortly after his curiosity had bested him. I picked the trap up with the tiny little body in it, and began making my way to the door to return the mouse to nature. Dust to dust, and all that.

There was twitching.

I chalked it up to death spasms. I felt bad about it. Mice are destructive, and desire to infect the world with the Hanta virus, sure, but they’re cute. I imagine them with little saddles on their furry backs. I don’t know why I imagine them like that, but I also imagine my sister’s chihuahua with a tiny saddle on her back, so I guess I’m obsessed with domesticating small critters. Once outside, I gently opened the trap and let the little mouse fall to the leaf-covered ground.

It lay there. It twitched. Then it was still. Then it twitched some more.

Gosh, the poor thing is probably cold, I thought. How horrible it must be to be out for an evening shopping trip, stop for a little peanut butter, get your head and neck slammed tight into a plastic torture device of some sort, get picked up by a massive giant, and dropped to the ground in the cold air. I decided that though the mouse was going to die, it deserved to die in some kind of a warm sleeping bag. I want to provide full service at the farm for all creatures.

I went to mom’s rag drawer and found a square of white sheet that she’d used, from the smell of it, to clean windows. Back outside, I carefully folded it, placed the mouse, still lying still though I could see it breathing, in the middle of the cloth, and tucked it around him.

Sometimes it’s just nice to be tucked in.

I held it for a moment. It was pretty cute, the fuzzy brown body with the chubby white stomach, all tucked into the Windex-scented sleeping bag.

Man, I hope I’m not just gassing it, I thought as I put the mouse on a fluffed pile of grass. I could certainly smell a whiff or two of ammonia. Whatever the case, I gave the little critter a pat, retucked it in leaving room for its nose out the top, and went inside. At that point, it looked pretty dead.

The next morning I went out, and lo and behold, the death shroud was empty and the mouse was gone.

I wonder if its disciples came and stole the body.

Click to see more pictures.

My cat Brutus was home. He was time. He was a friend. He was a geographic place. He was safety. He was habit. He was happiness. He was consolation. He was companion. He was comic. He was antagonist. He was from a certain time in my life. He created laughter and destroyed shoes. He was no loneliness. He was soft when things were hard. He was quiet when life was loud. He was mine. He made me happy just knowing he was alive.

He was just a cat, I guess, except to me.

I would ask my parents for Brutus updates when calling home, still trying to garner up the courage to ask my landlord if I could please have a cat. Brutus got into the butter, I’d hear, or he figured out a way to get the lid off of his food bin. They’d put the phone up to his ear and I’d talk.

He’d chew my flip flops. For a year we had to make certain the bathroom door was closed, because he would somehow shred an entire roll of toilet paper despite not having front claws. He’d crawl into bed with me at night and take up all the room, or burrow down into the blankets. If my door was closed, he’d lie on the floor and shove his paws under it to get my attention. In the mornings, he’d wait at the bottom of the stairs, ready to eat his second breakfast. If you stood up from the good chair in the computer room, and returned even a half minute later, chances are he’d taken your seat and was pretending to be asleep. For a while, he was active in trying to get the lid off of the treat jar. When he was a kitten, I would put him in a sock or a small knit hat and we’d play on the floor of my room. Every year he got two haircuts from my sister, once at Thanksgiving, and once at Easter.

Pets die.

Nubby, our childhood pony, died alone in front of the red gate in late summer, the foxtails waving in the breeze, snagging our ankles, as my sister and I stood crying, bridle in hand. Snuffly, the miniature dachshund, was put to sleep, my dad handling all the details, burying her where she would be safe. My treasured horse wandered out by the trees, knees crumpling, dying gaunt and alone. Baby, a Shetland pony, stood covered in flies, his eyes and his old soul already gone, dead by the time we got back with the gun. Shep’s life started to seep away, and dad took the awful memory so that she could go. The day-old foal died in the barn, his mother watching over him. Munchkin had a stroke one average afternoon, and I held him as he died. Jesse, the last of the childhood horses, was put down and returned to the earth. Brutus died alone at a vet clinic, only six years old, health problem undiagnosed.

When my sister called me at work last week to tell me Brutus had died two days earlier, I leaned against the mop and started to cry. ”We didn’t give him a very nice haircut,” I said through tears. “He died with a bad haircut. And I wasn’t there when he died.”

I struggle to think and write this in past tense.

Brutus had been there many times over the years when I would sit on my bed and cry about the things that words had yet to discover. It was nice to have another living thing around, because I was often lonely. It seemed wrong that I wasn’t there much these last two years of his life. Giving up treasured possessions when you don’t feel ready leaves gaping holes that need to be filled wisely.

Just a cat. But a huge, gaping hole.

His death marks yet another closing door on the past. I can’t go back. I do not like what is in front of me, but the things I want to go back to are fading, one by one. There’s nothing to go back to. Change rushes in as a flood, washing away the landmarks, leaving pillars of salt. It is the loss of a pet, a friend, and a place and time that I knew, all in one.

Brutus is buried next to Snuffly. This means a lot to me.

I don’t know how long I’d been sitting in the parking lot, or why I was there.

I have a friend who, a month ago, expressed concern about me via email and I said I would explain and still her email goes unanswered. I received a message from another friend today who wondered if she’d offended me and I felt guilty because I don’t know what I did or didn’t do that lent itself to that conclusion or how to have avoided doing or not doing what I don’t know I did.

I just want to avoid people. I have nothing to say. Faking fine isn’t coming as easily as usual.

I remember my high school graduation. I wore white shoes, my mom made my cake, and I had imagined great things for my future. These plans did not include sitting alone in a small apartment at age 36, still crying extensively over the death of a very beloved cat.

There’s not really much to say about it. You can’t go on and on about a cat; people will think you’re crazy and have lost perspective. They’ll make you out to be a joke. Things compound in life and at some point you just shut off.

Graduation isn’t so great.

The opening salvo features Brutus in a formal setting lacking anything of interest. Since I am unable to have my cat here with me in my apartment, I’ll be making everything up. This will likely increase the breadth of topics, since in real life, he does nothing and eats from a food bowl surrounded my mouse traps so the mice don’t eat his food.

It’s a great start to an exciting series.