Cult of Murray

I guess Abby was a sophomore at Murray State University when she brought home the cute puppy for us to see. She had named the little guy Murray. Little Murray was not well and we suspected the parvovirus. He wouldn’t eat or drink water and was very lethargic. I suspected he wouldn’t make it through the weekend.

The next morning Abby called me from her basement bedroom to look at him. His lifeless body was lying in the shoe box. Abby, with tears in her eyes, said she didn’t want to be around when I took care of the body.

I took the shoe box out to the edge of the backyard and laid it on the ground between the two wooden crosses supporting the clothes lines. The weird canine irony wasn’t lost on me and, as I recall, the next day was Easter Sunday.

I dug the shoebox size grave about four feet deep. Removing the shoe box coffin lid, I double checked to make sure Murray was indeed dead. I didn’t want to bury the poor thing alive. I put the lid back on and put Murray in his final resting place. Before I shoveled in the dirt I said a two word eulogy, “Sorry Murray.” I felt a little silly as I said it; after all, it’s just a dog, right?

I wonder, if in a far off future civilized incarnation of our world, while digging the foundation for a new building, they find the fossilized bones of a puppy between two fossilized wooden crosses. What would they think?