Mark Budman

The Good Death

The term euthanasia is derived from two Greek words—eu, which means good, and thanatos, which means death.

 
My cat plays snowballs on the deck while I’m listening to Music for Cats by David Teie.

My cat bends his paw at an impossible angle and throws a ball up.  He’s very fit. I mean, he was. Until the diagnosis.

He follows me around when indoors, or herds me toward his feeding bowl. He thinks he’s a sheep dog and I’m an old ram. I can see a cat we cremated before him in his eyes. All cats share the same soul, but they don’t get equal shares.

When the snowball goes up, it goes up, and up, and up, until it reaches the cat heaven, which is right next to the human heaven, which in turn is flanked by the dog heaven, but I’ve never studied the latter.

If they ask me, the said snowball has no chance to go to hell. I hope, for the cat’s sake, they will ask me but only when the music stops. It will be very quiet then, and the snow will lay undisturbed, reflecting the heavens and my upturned face. 

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Mark Budman is a writer, editor, inventor, engineer, translator, interpreter, photographer and a wearer of many other hats. He was born in the former Soviet Union but now resides in Boston. Mark follows the fine American tradition: a person moves to the US, learns the language, takes any job he can find, complains bitterly, but perseveres. Mark also writes flash fiction, so he knows how to express himself concisely, before the reader gets bored. He loves to travel so he can compare foreign countries to America and congratulate himself on the fine choice he made 35 years ago when he came here. He loves his family so he can get emotional support and an audience for complaints. He loves his cat, especially when the cat bites him on his ankles. Above all, he loves his readers, in sickness and in health.