015/2012 Bodies

Word Count:  371

These are the hands that maneuvered the broom that swept the body onto the shovel. These are the hands that were inside the gloves that touched the shovel that carried the body and flung it into the woods.

I didn’t kill the vole. It was lying there lifeless on the back porch when I opened the door to go out to the garden. It may have fallen out of the sky during the night, or struck dead by God in answer to prayers. Or left by a neighborhood cat as an offering of love.  I really don’t care how or why; dead is dead.

Since my promised-to-love-you-forever husband up and left me I’ve been subjected to labor that comes under man-jobs and I deeply resent it. I wish I could call him to come over and get rid of dead voles and spiders and such but even if he were around I wouldn’t want to owe him any favors. I do much more important things like balance a checkbook and clean the refrigerator and stove. I’m sure his would be crusty by now.

Another day, another gift from the gods: a large trout found under a bush. How else to explain it except maybe an egotistical male eagle who believed he could carry it aloft from the river to a perch up in the tall pine. A single, likely divorced male eagle who didn’t have a female to find what he’d lost.

Then the raccoon. Likely passed out from a drunken night out with the boys. Stiff as a log dead on my lawn.

I need to find me a man to take care of these sorts of things. I’ll even put up with the snoring, the ink-stained shirt pockets, the hopelessly bad sense of direction that keeps him from carrying his plate from table to sink.

And I meet them, the single male neighbors, the ink-stained men at the office. Thing is, when I tell them about eagles and dead trout and voles and raccoons in my yard, their eyes get that glazed fearful look and they scurry away.

I’ve heard the rumors, but truly, my ex-husband is alive; just not around.