I don't want to talk about it

But I will.

First, a little bit of background. Our house sits with the back part of the yard nearly right on a major highway but it's elevated to the degree that the street part is level with our upstairs. There is a sidewalk that runs alongside the highway. Between the sidewalk and our yard is a lovely green portion with some small trees and a thicket of various bushes and trees that separate us from the traffic and noise.

This morning we woke up to find a white cat dead with a collar in our back yard. It was obvious that this cat didn't just wander into our yard and die of old age. Although there was no overt evidence of trauma or poisoning or attack by coyote, it didn't die a natural death. Or if it did, it didn't do it in our yard. It's obvious to me that someone flung it into our yard from the street. Over the bushes, in fact.

Tom called the police and their response was pretty much, "why are you bothering us when we've got some serious nothing to get done." He called the Humane Society which told him pretty much the same thing with the addition of "please, double bag the cat and put it in your trash." I know a dead cat isn't high up there on the scale of importance and I didn't expect them to drop what they were doing and show up but you would think someone would tell us what to do about it or wonder how this cat ended up sprawled in our yard. Or maybe be interested in case this started showing up in other peoples' yards.

I'm not letting our cat out on his leash tonight. Or any other night for that matter, without someone being out there with him.

We never let Hannibal out on Halloween because some kids have thrown firecrackers into our back yard from the street. And we have to shut all the windows because it drives Professor into hysterics. Not that that is a far trip for him. So do squirrels.

I really don't get why animal abuse is such a fun thing for kids to do. This happened in our county not too long ago and I do not get it. I feel like I need to cleanse my back yard from the insanity. I would be troubled if it had been an animal attack because we do have critters around here. But that's the natural order of things and while it's sad, it's life. This is beyond sad. It's...I can't find the words.

Tom doesn't think bad things happen in small towns. He's always lived in the city so he thinks that we're free from crime or vandalism or things like this. He believes the cat just wandered into our yard and dropped dead from a heart attack or something. But cats don't sprawl out like that when they're ill. They tend to curl up in a safe place. Not the middle of the yard.

I'm going to go find something pleasant to think about because this is really depressing.