The house is cooler and quieter now. The coolness started when the doctor held her stethoscope to his belly: no heartbeat. I extinguished the candles then – all three, one for each of us.
I then opened the doors. An open door would let his spirit fly freely from our home to the park, where he often walked leashed. Here, I thought, he could roam wild.
The house is cooler and quieter now. His body, like a giant star, sputtered to its slow languid end. The heat of that star is now being exchanged – not destroyed or created, but bending into something new.
I normally mark my days by special, hand-picked perfumes. Today I chose not to wear any of this, wanting only to smell, to taste, to see things as they were. Instead I wanted to smell the top of his head. I wanted to smell his animal-ness. The grass of him. The pollen of him. The slightly bitter odor of his last few breaths. He was so still, but after, after, things are more still.
The house is cooler and quieter now and he is fragmenting back into dust. Once a zygote in a rogue mama’s belly, a rapidly developed set of cells who coalesced into a fever of life and slobber and walks, and cuddles, and sleep and snoring and pure selfless joy. My boy. My sweet stinky boy.
