A Silent Death

This summer while house sitting for a good friend the fish died. Before the family returned my French exchange student and I spent a good fifteen minutes at the fist store determined to find a perfect replica so the children would not know the fish had died. We ended up not being very successful, however when they returned the children believed that Sounder, the fish, had changed colors due to the heat. Had they found out Sounder’s true fate I know many tears would have been shed. I have been thinking about this and American’s relationship to animals in general since I woke up this morning to find one of my host family’s sheep dead. As I was often woken in the night by her regurgitating and she has shown a lack of interest the past couple of days in my electric tooth brush (I brush my teeth outside their cage) I knew her days were short. At the same time it was a tad heart breaking to see her lifeless body on my way to breakfast this morning. Later in the day I was informed by one of the girls that the sheep had died. It then disappeared and the household continued on as if nothing unusual happened. And nothing unusual might have happened.