Mark's Pages

September 21, 2003:

Matted tail. Yellow mucus hardening at the corners of his mouth. Backs away from food as if it were poison.

He wants to be alone in darkness.

I made him a little bed inside a cupboard, with a bowl of water and a towel for a mattress. Drinks, hobbles out onto the floor with a single feeble cry. Can't make the box on his own, dribbles his few pathetic drops on the floor before I reach him. Crawls back into the dark.

Horrible to watch a poor creature starve to death.

Matted hair. The slow-motion movements of the drugged and feeble. You back away from food as if it were poison.

When the nurse leaves you reach the light switch with a book: you want to be alone in darkness. Just yourself and three million tubes and blinking lights.

Life shares your sense of humor. How ironic for it to be this, of all things.

The innocence of animals. She says, "He never ever did anything..."