Introduction

This tragic tale was shared by some neighbours of mine who have since obtained another family cat to love and cherish. It happened a little while ago, but the poor boy in the story still gets a ribbing over his response to his beloved animals death. It's gone down in their family folklore.

The Family Cat

The family cat, it died the day
That everybody was away.
When they got home, they were distraught,
Because it was an after thought

To check it, so they did not find
The furry corpse it left behind
Until it had been dead awhile.
No rub, no purr, no cheerful smile.

Though deeply grieved, they did not sit,
Instead they thought to bury it.
The woman dug the shallow grave,
The boy, one final farewell gave,

Then laid its lifeless body down
Into the damp earth, cold and brown.
The woman, bent to cover up
The cat, encountered one hiccup,

The overlooked forgotten sin,
Of rigor mortis setting in.
And though poor puss was unaware,
His stiffened tail stood in the air

In homage to the terminal;
A stark and forlorn sentinel.
The woman cried and tried in vain
To lay the cats tail down again,

Until so wracked with grief, and sick,
She wedged it 'neath a garden brick.
The boy was taken by a fit,
The woman first thought grief was it,

But on a closer look she found
Him laughing, writhing on the ground.
"You horrid child, your cat has died,
You shouldn't laugh at that!" she cried.

But still he laughed, hysterical,
He found her antics comical.
The woman, still to end her task
To put the cat to rest at last,

So angry with the boy that she
Attacked to job ferociously.
And muttered to herself the while;
What horrid boy could be so vile?

How could he err so callously?
To find such mirth in tragedy?
But still he laughed until he cried,
The woman hot and fuming tried

To finish planting puss away,
That done, she had some words to say.
"You stop that laughing now! You hear?"
She took the poor boy by the ear

And cracked him 'cross his curly dome,
"Just wait until your father's home!"
With that, she marched him to the house
To wait for her expected spouse.

That night the household would resound
With screeches, laughter, round and round,
The story swinging to and fro
From tales of mirth, to grief and woe

As one another did regale
The story of the dead cats tail.
But down the bottom of the hill,
A little mound of dirt there still,

With time and wind and weathering,
The garden brick's uncovering!

Oh may we never see the day
When earth and brick erode away,
Exposing such a grievous view,
Of resurrected tail anew!

Copyright; Stringybark
Email: stringybark@hdc.com.au