The Sniper Did It

When I walked into our tiny apartment one Monday last fall, my grandmother told me that her cat had been laying on the side of the road motionless all morning.

I walked outside to find the fury carcass laying, with wind gently billowing its yellowish-gray fur. The cat's one eye appeared larger than the other, as if the wave of explosion pushed it out like in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Its mouth agape. Blood stains covered the stiffened body.

I wrapped it into tarp and sheets and carried the carcass to the small wooded area near the apartment across from the rail road tracks. My grandmother walked behind, crying, sobbing, and creating theories about the possible murder of the love of her life. I dug a hole in the ground; she wandered off to pick some flowers. I put the cat into the hole and covered it with ground. My grandmother laid the wild flowers and still crying walked home.

At home, she and my mother dove into conspiracy theories regarding the untimely death of the cat.

"Someone must have hit her with a rock," my mother said.

"Someone must have ran over her head while she was sleeping," was the theory of my less-sane grandmother.

In short 10 minutes, they have developed an outline for a TV series pilot with the cat as the main character. They did so without any demands for compensation for the rights to distribute it over the Internet (Hi, mom!).

The mafia, the story goes, sends out snipers to hide on roofs of five-story block apartment buildings in our neighborhood with the purpose of aimless cat murder. My mother felt the urge to share her theories with everyone around -- including a plummer who came for the third time to finish his work on a toilet after he had already been paid for the job.

The fall has turned into winter, which is now giving its way to spring. One cannot know the precise location of the grave any more. I don't know if my grandmother has ever been out looking for it or whether she visited her blockbuster hero. I do know, however, that to this day she reminisces about her beloved cat as if only yesterday the sniper killed it.