Friday, January 4, 2008

Life and Death in the Suburbs

On Thursday I found myself in one of the more exclusive suburbs. Beaverton or somewhere out that way. Up on a big hill. Overlooking everything, perfect and plain. You could eat your lunch off of the street.
As it usually goes with these residence drops, no one was home to sign for whatever crap I was delivering. In fact, I did not see any sign of any human beings anywhere. The silence was eerie. I knocked again. Nothing. I looked in the little window at the top of the door and all that I could see was a small cross hanging on a white wall. It was the only decoration that I could see through the little window.
I got the okay to leave the package on the doorstep. As I leaned over to set the envelope on the doormat I stepped on something. Whatever. Then I noticed a small, furry thing laying on the doormat. It was furry, the size of a small thumb, and it had a tail. I suddenly realized that the thing under my foot was once like the thing on the doormat, though after being stepped on and rained on, it had become just a damp wad of bone and flesh and tail. The only signs of life in that neighborhood were two dead mice.

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