Smelly Requiem

I grew up out in the woods so I’m no stranger to running across dead animals and having to get rid of them. Now I live in a town with neighbors so I can’t just toss half a deer carcass  or cat torso into the woods for the coyotes. For whatever reason, every spring little, animals appear dead in our back lawn--either because they were old, not prepared for winter, discarded babies, or (as the case with rabbits) killed by the father to minimize sexual competition. Those experiences certainly informed this very short, very ridiculous piece.


Pete scratched at the loose soil with a fallen stick from a Ponderosa pine. Company was on their way and his wife needed  him to dispose of a dead baby robin. Too lazy to get a shovel, Pete scratched primitively at the ground then rolled the flaccid body of the bird over once, then twice.

With a poke he stuffed the tiny soft corpse into its shallow grave. Force from the stick pushed gas out of the bowels as toothpick-legs clumsily crisscrossed. A tiny tuft of air whistled from the creature. One last little baby bird fart.