Big Wheel Keep On Turnin

We had a hamster for a year. A year of listening to the squeaky wheel every  night when we were trying to watch a movie. Or when kids spent the night sacked out on the couch. Or anytime it was quiet. That damn wheel.

Shadow. He was like a lump of brown furry clay. He never caused any problem. Except for the two months he was lost under the couch, on hiatus and living the high life on the run. All the couch cushion innards he could eat. Then he came out on CHRISTMAS EVE, right into Santa's waiting hand. It was a Christmas miracle. The only thing Bess asked for on her Christmas list. Can I have Shadow back please.

He was the world's easiest pet, for those of you in the market for the world's easiest pet. Those same characteristics also made him the world's most boring pet. And don't forget, nobody wanted to clean his cage (I volunteer, I say, out of pity) (and because it smelled like old shoes in the rain that have warmed up in a hot car while you were at the fair), and nobody really played with him except to take him out to scare people who were afraid of rodents. And there was the wheel.

I fed him every night and every morning, he ate like a supermodel. A handful of pellets and man was he full. He could eat an enormous amount of broccoli for a being that weighed about .25 pounds.

Toward the end I was complaining that I was the only one feeding, cleaning or even jail visiting the little guy. I was saying "LET'S SELL THE CAGE, and if he's in it well --"

Then came the morning I hadn't heard the wheel. I went to the cage to fill up his tiny little doll sized chowder mug with pellets. The pellets were in there from the night before.
OH NO. I thought, with a pang. He never left any food.

I slowly lifted up the little pink house he hoarded all the shavings into and lived in like a hobo. Shutting out the world.
Little Shadow was only a shadow now. A little tiny area throw rug. All the life left behind. On the bigger wheel. The one not one of us has seen yet. He took his tictac sized feet and scampered off while we were sleeping.

Poor Shadow, I thought. My hand still holding his pellets.

Maybe his little pink house and his big looming wheel,  his whole life was a pretty good place to be. We didn't bother him much, and he had his exercise routine, his variety of fruits and vegetables, someone came and cleaned up his room (me). He lived like a king.

I felt bad for being mad about the wheel all those nights. He was doing his thing, man. He was sharing himself and asked for nothing.

We buried him outside, digging a grave with a spoon. When I say we, I mean me.
I patted the earth and hoped with his body safe back where it came from, that maybe the whiff of soul he must've had was mingling with the stars.

The smallest things sometimes teach me that routine is everything. Even complaining about routine. Even him being in there and us being out here, except for the toothpick sized bars that kept him from living in the couch like a free man, we were all doing the same thing.

Running on the wheel and not thinking about it at all.