Charlie
Understood
In
Memory of Charlie
October 24, 2011 –
October 17, 2026
Your
Honor, members of the Jury:
I plead
guilty to the charge of first degree felicide.
Premeditated.
This is
my testimony,
This is
my confession,
Here are
the facts,
And I will try not to
weep.
It
started when Charlie went pear-shaped.
We
thought that kitty was just turning fat
But his ribs
and spine stuck out,
His belly bulged with
fluid,
He looked like both Santa
and Gollum.
He looked pregnant with
death.
He hated
the drive to the vet, he always did.
There the
vet withdrew blood
And 400
milliliters of clear fluid.
When the
veterinarian met me, she leaned upon the wall,
She slipped down, she wrapped
arms around her knees
And she told me the bad news
that I half expected.
Heart failing, kidneys
failing, thyroid failing.
Any drug for one would
make the others worse.
There was
nothing to be done.
No
medical miracle despite all our human magic.
No cure,
except the cure for everything.
Euthanasia,
we humans call it.
Mercy
killing, we call it.
For I
loved him, and I love him still
Though I,
his killer,
Have a strange way of
showing it.
For I am a jealous human.
How dare his body
conspire to kill him?
That’s my job.
You want Charlie stories? Here, then:
I took
him on a leash once.
Halfway
down the block a dog barked
So he
broke loose and ran home.
One
stormy midnight, he jumped onto my bed
So I
said, “Ain’t it great, Charlie?
Out there
it’s cold and wet and windy
But in
here it is warm and dry and still.
Ain’t it
great to be here in my house?”
He sat up
and gave me a look
As if to
say,
“Your
house?”
After the
vet’s diagnosis, I spoke to him.
I told
him that he was dying, soon.
I told
him about euthanasia,
The fine
print on the cat-human contract.
I asked
him if that was okay.
He gave
me a fierce and weary look, as if to say
“I’ve had
enough. Do what you will.”
For Charlie
understood.
He was a Cat.
On Monday
I called for a home visit
On Saturday, a week
before his 15th birthday.
I considered waiting that
extra week
Just to be neat, but
that’s human thinking, not cat
And he was suffering, and
so were we.
The lady who came was
calm and gentle. So was he.
Your Honor, I paid her 830
dollars.
500 for the killing, 300
for the cremation, 30 for the urn:
The price of a cat’s
life.
His death
was as good as death ever is.
My
daughter held him and I fed him from a tube
To
distract him from the bite of the needle.
First ketamine
for the little sleep
Then phenobarbital for
the big sleep.
He
drifted off lapping churru.
He died
with cat yogurt on his chin
And his
tongue blebbing out.
He looked
beautiful, regal, and goofy.
He died
as he lived.
Your
Honor, members of the Jury:
Of course I mourn.
Of course I weep.
Here are my tears.
But I do
not regret. I would do it again.
I am sorry only that I am
not sorry.
So I
throw myself upon the mercy of the Court.
