Emily and Reuben had been married for forty-two years.
Reuben had always fed the cat. He fed the cat in the early evenings. But now he was starting to forget that he’d fed it. And he’d feed it again. Once, he fed it four times.
Then he started firing his gun. He said he was shooting the moon. It was a big balloon. He would make it go pop. Emily hid the gun. Then he couldn’t find the gun because he needed to shoot the cat, because it wasn’t eating. He’d fed it for four days and it hadn’t eaten a thing. It must be sick and dying because it wasn’t eating. He had to put it out of its misery.
The saddest thing though was that Emily never got to say goodbye. He’d gone long before he went.