Snow Angel

Snow falls gently, uncaring, on the small, stiff body. Pretty flakes dot her whiskers.

The breeze stirs her tortoiseshell fur. Blood has dripped from her injured mouth to decorate her white chest. Her eyes, half shut, are filling up gently. Her claws are broken; they found no purchase on the tarmac when the van caught her.

The snow doesn't melt, now, when it lands on her thin and broken body.

Someone comes. Her hair is long and grey, her milky eyes haunted. The cold pains her, but she comes in all weathers, wrapped in many ragged layers.

She cradles the cat in her shawl, crooning softly.

Back at her cottage, she finds an un-used spot in the garden that will catch the sunshine. The ground is hard, and her fingers twisted with arthritis, but she's patient and determined. She lays the little one to rest there, tucking the shawl tenderly around the still form.

She pats the soil down and, joints creaking, moves a large stone atop the mound.

She pauses to mumble a prayer before she goes indoors to complete the ritual. The nursery waits, flooded with winter sunshine. She will step lightly in it, as in a church. Touching the mobile, the cot, the lamp... as if lighting candles. Murmuring softly to the little one whose body she never got to bury.

Stone still, with her head bowed and hands pressed together, she could almost be a statue in a cemetary.

The snow thickens, covering the newest grave.