Death Throes

the human race is going to hell. i know, and the reason i know is because i watched a cat die in front of me today.

it didn't die from old age or from getting run over by some careless (or heartless) driver sent by Beelzebub to destroy the somewhat domesticated relatives of the feline family. it died because someone sent it sailing into the air from one of the parking levels of the unfinished portion of the podium, about forty or fifty feet high. it landed on its back on the gravel of the parking lot next to the podium. there it lay, most probably suffering from massive internal bleeding and a broken spine, and most definitely in horrible pain. it tried to get up but after one pathetic attempt, it slowly toppled over onto its side, writhing, letting out pitiful, agonized meows as though pleading for someone to either help it or end its suffering. after about a minute, it ceased its cries and lay still.

while all this was happening, i stood there as though compelled by some unnamed force to watch. i had seen the falling cat out of the corner of my eye, i heard the sickening crack its body made as it hit unforgiving rocks, and i was stunned. i felt sick, like something had climbed up to my throat and taken up permanent residence there.

i looked around and saw other people watching. i saw two men laughing at the dying cat. something had just died, and they were laughing.

no matter how you turn it around in your heads, there is no way you can find a good, sound reason for someone to deliberately, intentionally, and perhaps even gleefully throw a cat several stories from the ground. and i cannot fathom how anybody else could think it was amusing.

what kind of people live in this world that practice this sort of malice? what kind of people stand by and giggle while others play the devil?

how did it turn out this way? this wasn't what we were taught. this isn't what we should know.

but still, we do it. people do evil things, and they don't give a shit about it. they even find it funny.

that's how i know we're all headed straight for hell. because the devil walks among us, and when he smiles, we smile back. when he cracks a joke, we crack up laughing. and when he whispers, we bend toward him and we listen. ultimately, we obey.

we're damned. we're in our death throes, the same way that poor animal was, and we don't even know it. we're on the verge of turning the key in the gates of hell, and from the looks of things, someone down there is going to throw us a party. we've brought the chow, after all.

and if people reading this think i'm making such a big deal about a stupid old cat, think again. whoever said it was just about the cat?

it's about us.

it's about our viciousness, our capacity for cruelty and sadism.

(maybe i shouldn't be so appalled. after all, we've done countless atrocities to each other over time. the atom bomb. the biochemical weapons. the general apathy. the unjustifiable notion of our own greatness.)

and even as i feel consumed by some imagined flame of righteous anger, i know i'm not free from the devil in me. because, after i watched the cat die, after i listened to its hurt cries, i looked up at where i supposed the wretch behind the atrocity was lurking, and i was so sorely tempted to sell my soul if in return something horrible and terrifying and torturous would happen to him. i could feel a part of me in its last death throes, and all i did was walk away.




(author's note: this really did happen today. i suppose i could have put it in a less dramatic manner, but i want people to take notice. we really are a horrible species, aren't we? and i really did hope that something horrible would happen to that guy who threw the cat. i hoped that he'd get thrown off himself, and that i would be there when it happened, and God help me, i know i would just laugh at him.)