Sometimes it’s awful to be lawful.
Our flag-soaked country might be consciously conservative and intolerant, but that’s what happens during a mesmerizing corruption of the public good. We fall into a daze that’s hard to shake. But things will swing to the other side. Maybe not before world events give us a rash, but things will change.
In the meantime –
We know this woman whose dogs tried to tell her something late last Friday night. We know she went out in her backyard and found a mother possum that didn’t have blood or tooth marks or injured looking parts, but was distraught. The possum raised up and looked right at the woman, communicating what, especially, eyes can communicate. Help me.
Then the mama died.
The woman got a flashlight and found four little possums scattered in different places. Newborns. They were cold, so she stuck the flashlight in her mouth, rolled three babies up in her shirt and stuck the smallest one in her bra to warm it. Then, since it’s midnight, she drove to the 24-hour Walmart in Cassville and got some human baby Pedialyte to prevent possum dehydration. Really, whattya gonna do? This event did not have a blueprint and babies are babies.
She warmed some milk, found an eye dropper, rubbed and soothed the tiny marsupials while getting some nourishment in them. She kept them alive best she knew how.
Suddenly it was Monday morning. The possum babies were barely opening their eyes, way too young to go 10 hours without food, so she packed them inside a winter hat and took them to work.
So every three hours she had to stop her already crowded day and rub their little bellies, feed them from the eye dropper, clean them and tuck them back into their hat – a 30-minute procedure.
The possums have fingers and opposable thumbs and tiny teeth and distinct personalities. They wrap their tails around her fingers, just like Pogo from the comics.
But in this town, Eureka Springs, pets that aren’t named Bravo or Cuddles are potentially illegal, so the rest of this story has to be really, really on the down low.
Wait. It’s 6 p.m. Feeding time. Time to get upstairs and take care of… Oh. Nothing.