Requiem for a Dead Cat

Sadly, Patches Devourer of Souls fell into the shadows sometime on Friday night. It was pretty sad watching the cat in those last hours. He theoretically should have died six years ago (he's 19), but he was never allowed to run out of the house and die on his own as cats often do. So he spent his last few hours wallowing in pain, slowly dragging himself off his dingy kitty bed to die under the heater because Fernando wouldn't take him to the vet to have him put down. I walked by the cat several times thinking he had gone quietly under, only to see him lift his matted head and cry out a cry that seemed to say, "Please step on my neck and end my misery!" Finally, when I walked to the bathroom to get my pills, I noticed that the cat's limp, skeletal body had been replaced by a cat-angel candle holder with a lit votive in it and two Tibetan idols. Patches Devourer of Souls, who lived far longer than any cat should, probably having spent the last six years in the equivilant of cat purgatory, devours souls no longer. For his little kitty soul is free.