Pet Cemetery | Benjamin Davis
Growing up, we had a lizard, ferret, parrot, rat, six dogs, eleven hamsters, and a holocaust fish who died with such startling frequency, that it was as though we’d bought each without bothering to check the expiration dates. Fish went in the toilet. Our mother dragged us by our names to the bathroom where we’d find her with a little green net in her hand. Inside there was always Rebecca, Ariel, Sarah, Anastasia, or whatever other fish had died. She’d cry, as she did when any pet died, then plop it into the toilet. “Everyone say bye, fishie!” She’d say. We would, and as the toilet gulped them down, she’d hum a little tune that I’m pretty sure was the national anthem. Then the hamsters. “Rodents,” our mother called them. Her only rule was that we could only have one at a time. So I doubt she was thrilled when we bought “Mama” who birth to six wiggly tablets that all would’ve grown to plague our home if Mama hadn’t eaten four of them, choking on the last, leaving us with reproducing siblings and a lesson on how nature surely doesn’t believe in God. Years passed. Hamster after hamster. It wasn’t our fault—not really; heart attacks, tumors, cold snaps, electrocutions, and embolisms. They always died in winter when the ground was too hard to bury them in. So our mother placed them in the four-by-six, three-foot-deep basement freezer in leftover shoeboxes beside the freeze-pops, chicken pot pies, and TV dinners, accumulating over years of forgotten springs. By my teenage years, a full two rows of shoeboxes lined the left-hand side of the freezer. When friends came over we’d go hunting for freeze-pops, and they’d ask, “What’s in the shoeboxes?” I’d say, “Hamsters, mostly.” And they’d laugh. Like it was a joke—which I always thought odd. What did they think, that we froze our shoes? If pressed, I’d open a box to show them a fur-matted, frozen stiff, rodent-popsicle. Hamsters don’t die gracefully. As my friends lost grandparents, I wondered how many hamsters equaled a grandparent. I’d see them grieve and think, well, I was a little sad when Anastasia died, was I ten percent of grandparent-sad? If we had ten hamsters die, would I have grown as much from my grief as they from theirs? Twelve? I made a mental note to count the shoeboxes, but I never did. Years later, I came home to find that my brother’s hamster had died on a beautiful summer day. Our mother reverently carried it outside. Our father dug a hole. My brother wept until all of his tears were used up. Until the hole was filled. Then they turned and went inside as if that were the end of it.
About the Author:
Benjamin Davis has stories and poems in over two dozen literary journals including Booth, Moon City Press, Softblow, and Slippery Elm Press. His poem collection, The King of FU (Nada Blank, 2018), was such a smashing success it shocked the indie press who printed it into an early grave. Visit him at daviscommabenjamin.com