A Strange Little Story

March 7, 2008

I saw a strange thing on Wednesday.

It was just after 4:00 and I was coming home from Kushira Shogyou. As I was waiting, I saw a man wearing a crisp black suit. He said hello to me. I said hello to him. And then I saw what he was doing.

This man, wearing a crisp black suit without a single wrinkle, was lifting a dead cat off the street and putting it in a pink plastic bag. I could see the back of the cat as the man lifted it up. I could see its stiff stripped tail and its brown intestines.

The man put the pink plastic bag in a white pick up truck, with the kanji for “Kanoya-shi” (Kanoya City) written on it. This truck was on my side of the street, close to the bus stop where I was waiting, and I saw many plastic bags inside it. Suddenly I thought I could smell the faint sickly-sweet smell of a hospital, but maybe it was only my imagination.

Perhaps it’s because a writer that this scene interested me. But still, as the man drove away, I couldn’t help but wonder where they put all the city’s dead cats and what they’d do with them afterwards….