It's the Mosquitoes

The cat's dying and I'm driving home from work. I only just arrived at work, but I'm driving home again because I forgot my glasses. I'm listening to a program about early onset dementia. Some expert is discussing the difference between normal forgetfulness due to aging, versus forgetfulness due to dementia.

"For example," says the expert, "you forget where you've put your glasses. You search high and low, and then find them sitting on top of our head. That's normal."

Do I know this guy? Is he normal? Did he interview me for this program?

When I get home, I find my glasses. Not on top of my head, in the freezer.

* * *

The cat's dying and the earth moves under Washington. Irene tears up the East Coast. The New York subway system shuts down.

"God's mad at the government!" says Michelle Bachmann. "Vote for me!"

My 22-year-old cousin is killed in a car accident. He's 22 years old and he's driving a Beamer, but let's not get side-tracked.

"Sometimes God just needs another angel," says his family, whose Beamers all sport Bachmann bumper stickers, and I say,

"He's fucking God, for crissakes! Why doesn't He fucking make another angel!"

"Don't vote for God!" I say.




The cat's dying and I find myself under the kitchen table at 3 a.m. During a thunderstorm. With the dog. Usually I find myself under the kitchen table at 3 a.m. for other reasons, not necessarily involving the dog, but let's not get side-tracked.

I look around as a crash of lightning spotlights the room and notice a small dark shape beneath a nearby chair. Not the cat, my glasses. Meanwhile the dog is sitting on top of my head.

If my husband had to choose between me and the dog, he'd be hard-pressed.

"We're hard-pressed!" says Michelle Bachmann. "Let's drill for oil in the Everglades!"

* * *

The cat's dying and I'm seeing a shrink. I started seeing the shrink before she started dying. The cat, not the shrink.

I keep seeing the shrink, but so far I'm still the same size.

Unlike the cat, who keeps getting smaller and smaller. Soon she'll disappear altogether.




The cat's dying and there's a hummingbird at the feeder. The wind is out of the west and the daylilies are still blooming. The hops have reached the top of the arbor, a pair of fawns are asleep beneath the mugo pines.

In this neck of the woods it isn't earthquakes, or hurricanes, and there's no subway system to shut down. Of course there's our own little homegrown natural disaster, Ms. Bachmann, who desperately needs shutting down, but it's not her, either.

It's the mosquitoes, stupid.

* * *

The cat's dying and we're experiencing the worst scourge of mosquitoes in decades. I'm talking the Ten Plagues of Egypt. I'm talking that minuscule and deadly variety that lies in wait 24/7 and attacks below the knees, not to mention below the belt, until everyone in the surrounding countryside within screaming distance appears to be walking around in red stocking feet.

Unlike the cat, who has never been bit by anything, having lived the life of a quintessential housecat, i.e., inside the house, where she's been walking around in white stocking feet for perhaps half of her allotted nine lives, but who apparently caught God's eye a few weeks back when He went prowling for another angel cat to help rid Heaven of all those annoying angel mice.

Never mind that God could as easily have fucking made another angel cat, not to mention fucking unmade all those annoying angel mice, but we all know what a fucking dickhead God can be. Lying in wait. 24/7. Like a mosquito.

But let's not get side-tracked.




Miranda is dying.