I rounded the corner of the failed garden house and was stopped cold in my tracks by this sight.
I held very still, thinking I’d just come upon him unawares but then I realized he was lying on the ground and flies were hovering. I knew he must be dead.
He cannot have been dead very long because I didn’t notice him at noon when I took the compost out to the pile. Nor have the ants found him yet.
But how did he die? There isn’t a mark on him. And no, for all my railing against the raccoons, I didn’t kill him by poison or any other means. There is nothing in my own back yard to have poisoned him accidentally either.
I don’t rejoice in his death. I didn’t wish him harm. I just wished him life elsewhere.
