Some kind of monster: the dodgy body dump

*photo is from some place on the internet

So here we go... you're going to think I'm some kind of monster. Best case scenario maybe you will just laugh nervously at my misadventure and wonder if I'm kidding ....here goes nothing.

So yeh....

Round about this time, one year, I had this most gorgeous cat die. She was beautiful and I mean beautiful. She looked gorgeous and she was absolutely lovely. She was purrrfect. She gets sick one time and dies suddenly. Bad heart.

She was an indoor cat and was extremely healthy in every other aspect. So even dead she was beautiful. There was a little bit of horror with the eyes rolling in the head and body on the floor thing; but I was pretty sad. I pushed her eyelids closed and waited for her to wake up and it didn't happen so I bundled her up in a box and prepared her for her last farewell.

I took her down to the river because she loved water, in her final days. I also just ended up there. I thought it would be a peaceful spot. Tranquil. Shady. Just nice. Anyways there's also some nice soft ground there and I mean real soft. Burial would be effortless and I'd have it done in no time.

Anyways I'm standing there with my open box staring at this pretty little kitty. Patting her, hoping she's just unwell, telling her she's beautiful and that she can just come back. She'd passed away in a recent hour and I was still dealing with it. Two other cats had sat by her as she lay herself down as if to also pay their final respects. Funeral service concluded, I remembered the eyelids I had forced closed and the eyeballs that had rolled outward in opposite directions.

Nope. Definitely dead.

Still, I had some freakish concern suddenly she had not died and I would kill her under metres of sediment and mud. I don't know where the urge had suddenly come from but I couldn't bury her and I had these recollections of those dumb movie moments where people gave others this beautiful river send off. They would cry and stuff.... but y'know it seemed like a lovely idea at the time....

So there I was. I walked through the mangrove with mud sinking me to my knees, shoes slipping off. There's this voice in my head crying 'stop! Just bury her.' I can't think straight and I worry that I might do something else stupid like taking her beloved body back home in the summer heat, just in case she woke up.

Where would I keep her? Would my large dog dig her body back up if I buried her in the yard? If I kept her in the shed or garage and she was dead would I be sane enough later to check on her? When rigormortis sets in will I be capable? What if she is alive and if I forget and she dies dehydrated somewhere? Am I going to keep her inside and in the lounge room just in case?

So I trudge on through the mud. Fuck the shoes, I'll find them on my way back. Mangrove roots are stabbing my arches. I had to decide at times to put a hand out to steady myself, unbalancing the box I'm carrying or risk falling flat on my face onto her body. I felt dodgy but I am determined and I get to the river. The muds even softer there and I'm sinking enough I wouldn't even need to dig. I could just stand there and the mud would bury us both, with no effort required. I set the open casket in the water and say goodbye and push off. The box floats out a bit and with the current but then comes to a standstill. It’s just floating there, way out of reach and it’s not going anywhere.

Horror. Too far out. I'm bogged.

Leave her there? Go and get her? What if I get out to her in the middle of the river, under the bridge and I get swept away in the river? No one knows where the fuck I am. I imagine the news headline.... My body would have swept down the river no issue. I'll be found the next town over a week later, when the smell gets too much or I'll wash up on the beach next month. I'll make front page. There'll be another news article a few pages in. Much more minor. “Cat in a box found at local creek”. (Yes I scanned local papers for weeks after). “Locals are mortified at disrespectful body dump“ or something like that.

I should have just buried her. Yes I know. I was watching the box thinking of these things. I just stare at it a while just thinking I'm fucked and it just looks like I just dumped a body.

Pretty much.

I was just staring hoping the tide comes in suddenly and that the box gets moving again but it doesn’t. It looks like it's coming in and not going out. Current is going that way, not the other. Nothing changes.

I'm still sinking. Statue pose. A car stops near  where mine is parked a few times near the entrance to here. It's parked a bit way back near the road. I can still see the road from where I am. Yep that's definitely the car that slowed down and went passed twice already.... I'm pretty sure I locked the car... Stress and panic sets in.

I bailed... as fast as anyone does escaping quick mud.

I get outta there and find my shoes one the way back. Mangrove roots still stabbing. Mud and all, I jump in the car which was locked. Heart pounding. Get me out of here. I turn the car around and go to the exit just as the other car begins to pull in next to mine. They simply wave to me and back out, leaving.

I get the hell outta there.

I spent the first week after that imagining the box, still floating in the same spot. The river meets the sea and the tide gets pretty high but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I thought about the cat coming back to haunt me. How could I? Didn't I love her?

The cat knows I did that.

I also wondered about the families fishing in the creek and imagining someone else finding her (argh). Neighbouring properties align the river bank. I began wishing she went out to sea.

These days I can bring myself to visit the creek and imagine her in the water she loved, chasing ghost fish and stealing fish from everyone else's catch- some kind of poltergeist thingy. I feel better about it but it sure did take a while. Before that none of it felt any good.

yep.... from now on it's Cedardale Pet Crematorium for all my pets needs. They even come and collect. I even got them to exhume a dog once. They're brilliant. No more burials.

So yeh that's my dodgy body dump... it wasn't meant to be like that. Unfortunately thats how it turned out.

Maybe you think I'm some kind of monster, maybe not. Maybe you will at least think I'm dumb. Don't they start fire to those things in a river send off? 

If you aren't ready to begin lobbying outside my house with a placard hopefully you have at least enjoyed the read.

Thats it for now.

Mez