8. The Incorrigible Guinea Pig

A few days after Betty had braided my beard, she and I embarked down valley upon a salvage mission. After crossing the essentials off our list, we raided a well-stocked hobby shop. My wife found tiny metal charms that she felt were appropriate for trimming my whiskers: skulls and knives and retro aerial bombs and other accoutrements of war. From that same shop we grabbed a few Lego sets and — fuck me — puzzles.

I loathe jigsaw puzzles. I’ve never believed they are worthy of anyone’s time, but one from this lot caught my eye. It was the Mona Lisa cut into hundreds of anxiety-inducing interlocking bits. Instead of the classic “mystic smile” we all know, this depicted her eating a pickle dipped in Nutella. The chocolatey spread was smeared all over her cheeks, her brow was furrowed with ecstasy, and her eyes were bursting with blood vessels.

I was amused by this image and bored with the apocalypse. So I poured myself a glass of Scotch, set up a card table in my living room, dumped the puzzle pieces onto it, and went to work. As I hunted down the corners and edges, I heard wheezing and hacking coming from the guinea pig’s cage.

“Hey, rat,” I called, “you okay in there?”

“I have a name,” he replied with a slight gurgle.

“I know,” I said.

He looked at me through the bars and giggled, “Your beard looks ridiculous and annoying. All those metal trinkets. Does your chin jingle now when you sneeze? Silly!”

The guinea pig and I are enemies.

I found three pieces that fit together. I sipped my Scotch and nodded with satisfaction. I can do this, I told myself.

“Hey, jingle chin,” the guinea pig yelled, “what are you doing?”

I tried to ignore him.

“Ah, come on,” he said, “I’m just busting balls. What are you doing?”

“I am trying my hand at a jigsaw puzzle,” I sighed, “which is something I haven’t done since —“

The guinea pig coughed. It was a deep, bowel clenching cough. I stood and went to the cage. I looked in and saw that he was shivering.

“You’re not well,” I said.

“Nah,” he answered, “I’ll be fine. Just a cold. Do you want help? With your puzzle?”

“You...” I stammered, “you want to come out of your cage?”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “Looks like there’s room on the table you set up there. I can help you.”

“Sure,” I agreed, “hold on a sec.”

I went to the kitchen and retrieved a fluffy hand towel. I returned to the living room, opened the guinea pig’s cage, and picked him up. I wrapped him in the towel before placing him on the card table.

“Thank you,” he chattered. He looked over the puzzle pieces scattered on the table. “What are we assembling?”

I showed him the box.

“Who is she,” he asked, “and why is she eating a cucumber covered in shit?”

I laughed, “That is a cucumber, yes, but a pickled one. And that’s not shit. It’s Nutella… um… a spread made of chocolate and hazelnuts, I think.”

“So,” the guinea pig mused, “someone created this image and then cut it up into all these pieces. Now the job is to fit those pieces back together and reassemble this image? Why?”

“It’s fun?”

“It can’t be,” he shook his head.

“No,” I conceded, “it can’t be.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“I’m bored.”

“I get bored, too, you know,” he struggled to breathe, “but no — you’re not this bored. This can’t be worthy of anyone’s time.” He coughed again. Blood and phlegm flew from his mouth and spattered the puzzle pieces. “Sorry,” his rib cage heaved, “not sorry. This puzzle thing — is stupid — and I’m dying. Of course — of course I’m dying — you dumb son of a — motherfucker!”

The guinea pig hacked so hard that his eyes bulged from his skull. His whole being shook and crimson snot trickled from his nose. He threw the towel off his body and collapsed onto his side. His tiny jaw opened and closed as he was suffocated by his own mucus. He died giving me the rodent equivalent of the middle finger.

The little bastard is ungrateful.

I wrapped the guinea pig’s corpse back in the towel and returned him to his cage.

I boxed up the slimed and bloodied puzzle pieces and threw that waste of time in with the rat.

I picked up the cage and marched it out my front door, across the street, and into the killing field.

I informed the family of the rat’s passing. My wife shrugged her shoulders, my son nodded his head. Mina raised her snout in the air and grumbled her indifference. Marcus laughed and declared, “I am a dog.” The cat was nowhere to be found. At sunset, we all convened around the cage in the killing field. I poured a coffee mug’s worth of kerosene over it, stepped back, and lit a cigarette.

“Does anyone want to say anything?” I asked.

“I am a dog,” Marcus said. “Is the rat really dead this time? Not pretending like before?”

“He’s dead,” I answered.

“Oh,” Marcus said, “he was a rat. I am a dog… a dog that is aware that I will also die someday. The rat is dead. He used a lot of naughty words. He liked carrots. I like carrots, but I also like meat. The rat didn’t eat meat. This one time, the rat told me I could eat shit. I told him that I don’t eat shit but that I smell my shit after I shit out my shit. I am a dog. Amen.”

“Thank you, Marcus,” I said. “Anyone else? Betty?”

She shook her head.

“Liam?”

“Sorry, Dad,” he shrugged, “I got nothing.”

“Mina,” I looked at my pit bull, “anything?”

“I…” she began, “I… no. Nothing.”

I tossed my cigarette onto the cage. It burst into flames. Everyone returned to the house, but I stood staring at the miniature pyre.

“I tried,” I said aloud, “but you had to be a cunt about everything. Good-bye, Selwyn.”