Tag Archive for: cat

A black cat, perched atop an empty moss-coated, concrete flower urn, watched the goings-on at the graveside service of the recently deceased Romey J. Wellington. At the hired clergyman’s first mention of ashes and dust, the aloof animal opened its mouth to yawn and then licked away an imaginary something on its right forepaw.

An approaching evening storm dropped small dust- and debris-filled whirlwinds in advance of the soon-to-arrive roiling and boiling black clouds and jagged bursts of bright white electricity. The exhalations of the impending cloudburst puffed and fluffed the cat’s silky fur, first one way then another.

One more lackadaisical yawn.

Romey J. Wellington’s family, five sons and three daughters (his wife went on to her reward some fifteen years earlier) sat beneath a green funeral tent. There were no tears or outward signs of grief from the motley group of faux mourners—not a peep or a meek weep—as the highly-vocal preacher raised his hands high and began to pray in a booming voice so loud that it could, well … raise the dead.

Instead, the eldest son looked at his wristwatch. The youngest daughter, Roweena, who would turn thirty-four in a few weeks, used her thumbs to navigate various screens on her cellphone. The others watched the sky, looked at their shoes, picked lint from their clothing, and cracked their knuckles. Anything to avoid looking at the old man’s walnut casket with its two solid brass handles and strategically placed matching do-dads.

“Oh, Lord, please be with this family in their time of sorrow. Their hearts are heavy and they—” Stopping the reverend just as he was gearing up to properly send Mr. Wellington to his reward, the storm announced it’s arrival with an earthshaking BOOM! The middle daughter screamed. An honest to goodness “scared the hell out of me” scream.

The cat casually tip-toed over to the tent and claimed a spot on the fake grass rug near the head-end of the coffin. It made eye contact with the preacher who, after giving everyone a second or two to gather themselves, continued his homily. “Dear Lord, Romey Wellington was a kind man whose generosity was—” BOOM!

The bottom opened up and raindrops the size of Gummy Bears began to savagely pound the tent’s emerald green canvas top that had begun to undulate up and down in unison with the harsh and hurricane-like winds. Lightening flickered and zigged and zagged across the dark sky. Tent poles rattled against anything and everything nearby, and they tugged at the metal stakes the workers pounded into the red clay a few hours earlier.

The cat turned to look at the men and women seated in the metal folding chairs. It walked over, rubbing its body across the shins of all eight plus their respective spouses, if any. Then it returned to its place beside the coffin.

Wellington’s children had voted, eight to zero, for murder when the old man announced his decision to donate his entire fortune to the church, leaving them, his own flesh and blood, without as much as a dime. It had been quite easy to locate someone, a meth addict who needed to keep his high going, who’d “done the deed” for a few hundred dollars.

A cool million to the church … Puhleeze.

Suddenly a streak of lightning ripped downward, startling the family again. Brother number three announced to no one in particular that the bolt of electrical energy sounded extremely close.

The cat ducked as a second lightning bolt struck the canvas tent dead center, with a deafening explosion and an unbelievably searing heat.

The blast instantly claimed the lives of the eight mourners and their beneficiaries, the only people who could’ve stood between the church and Wellington’s fortune.

When the smoke cleared, the priest slyly winked at the cat, placed one hand on Romey J. Wellington’s eight-thousand dollar hand-rubbed casket, and said, “Amen.”