Dearly departed...

“Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet” some-quote-or-other

I always thought Max only loved three things in life, eating , sleeping and being clean. He has the most impeccable hygiene, and he’s certainly on the heavier side of obese, but this weekend I learnt about the fourth thing he loves - maybe even more than Nutrigrain - his brother Logan. Logan was the smaller, uglier and all round meaner of the two who had the grandest plans for our couch i.e. chewed it to within an inch of its life. Max was Logans wingman, or perhaps, wing-rat, and he’s experiencing life on his own for the first time.

The house resonated with the loss of one of our boy’s, our two big fat white rats. Logan never was the healthiest specimen, and the upholstery he inhaled in his working life probably didn’t help much, but his downhill descent still surprised us. One evening he seemed to have trouble breathing, the next day his stomach begun to convulse with the effort, and he lay curled up, uninterested in food and water. We knew what was coming, the decision that had to be made, but we put it off, we shrunk from it. When the call was made, and the time to go to the vets arrived, I saw fear in the haze that covered his normally glistening red eyes. He explored the box we put him in, trying to get out. Does he know where we’re taking him I wondered? Wishing only to find an answer in his big red eyes. The vet afforded us the answer with the question - $400 treatment or $95 mercy? There was no debate, no funds to be moral.

And now Max the fat white rat is alone in his roomy three storey bachelor pad, and when I approach him and call out his name he shuffles away, putting his head under the towel. A friend once said “Its not a human, its not a dog, its just a rat. Just a rat.” But there was no way you could look into Logan’s eyes and see only an empty shell, or watch him stretch and give a little yawn after a nap without your heart warming, or even watch him dig monstrous holes in your couch to make a cosy little cave without admiring his architecture. And there’s definitely no way you can look at Max without sensing his sadness, his newfound loneliness.

I hereby reserve this moment in time for all our lost friends, the dearly departed pieces of our souls, for they were always much more than just four legs and fur. :)

(Logans hard work and my mothers tears)

Time, fairies, memories and other random facts

It’s been awhile since I last posted anything. More free time means less procrastination, and results in less blogging. Oddly true logic.

But time has certainly been passing.

I have a very fickle relationship with time. I curse the hours for dragging by and then gasp to find that months have passed in the blink of an eye. I despair when the seconds mature so slowly, it’s as if they refuse to form minutes as well as when minutes dance so fast past the hours that whole days disappear. Time disappears into the endless depths of itself, hours roll into each other, years come and go, the fairies come out to play and the cow runs away with the moon.

A few photos, some scribbled words, several patched memories and the accumulation of random facts lay collected in a small pile of 08. I already can’t recall them with perfect clarity. The experiences that challenged and changed me this year, will be changed and challenged in my memory. Things learnt will be forgotten as more and more of my youth vanishes before my eyes. The massing feeling of things that are yet to be done or learnt, loves yet to be had and laughs yet to be shared fills me with an overwhelming sense of time running far ahead of my feet. But before I run off with the fairies, I really ought to get a grip on myself, time is wasted despairing about things over which one has no control. And so there are 3 revealing facts I came across in 08 that will guide me through 2009...

1. The average person will buy 22 greeting cards a year.
- My performance has been below average.

2. Neanderthals living in Europe were fair skinned, freckled, had red/ginger hair and could talk.
- I am led to believe I’m a very direct descendant.

3. Supernatural beings can be anything from giants to trolls, dwarves, gnomes, hobgoblins, leprechauns, African tokolshes, elves and fairies. Not all these creatures are benign, and some, like African entities, are terrifying. Fairies have been called many different names, but it is certain that they exist. If you set out to see them, you will be taking some risk, although European lore suggests that they cannot do real harm to humankind.

The New Year looms ahead, empty and daunting and only one question remains to be asked: will the woodland fairies reveal themselves to me, or will my searching be fruitless?

Only time will tell.