hamsters

I have a text file that contains ninety eight stories united by a same theme. These stories were dug out somewhere in the net mid 1995. My intuition suggests is this file had been compiled today its volume would be thrice as long, but I won't do that, these 98 are quite enough for me. Around twice a year, on Cheesefare Sunday and before the Judgement Day, I reread this file start to finish. The last story there goes thus: "My ex-wife had it die during Kashpirovsky's hypnosis sessions. She held it before the tv.".

The Lord, as we all know, chose Poland for His experiments. Death chose a hamster.

Deat of a hamster atracts us with is tragicomedy: they die so nimbly, so diversely, with such outstanding diligence that all's left for the other mortals is to turn the death into an incredible legend. I'm deeply convinced every human out there has a story about their or their relatives' hamster's deaths. My conviction if fueled by the conversations with people I barely know every week or so; be it taxi drivers or business partners. (By the way, if someone comes to a business meetup and sees you for the first time ever; so, if this person, in response to "How did your hamster die?" starts gasping and making a wide stare yet still responds to that - hire them as a subordinate but never ever create a partner business. Their balls are of steel, they'll endure you, you won't). From the recent stories alone I remember two in particular: Queen of Spades and history of France. The first one is about a hamster choking to death with the aforementioned card while chewing through the poker deck. The other one fell victim to F.P.G. Guizot's diligence. The person telling me that (we both were in a queue to the doctor and it was nice discussing someone else's suffering), repeated several times:"if not for Totosha I'd never even bother reading those doorstoppers". The late Totosha should be glad for his owner's respective interest to the "doorstoppers" about the same way Margarite of Navarra would be of Philipp the Beautiful's death.

A hamster's death is never sudden: it's bought with a certain expectations, an anticipation of the untimely departure under unpredicatble circumstances. If your hamster's not dead yet, something's wrong with you.  Why didn't get married and have yourself a nice fat mother in law who would sit on a sofa and crush the poor martyr resting under a sofa pillow? Where's your sense of camaraderie making you dip the hamster into the foamy oily-black porter so it would also enjoy the invigorating liquied? Why are you so thoroughly devoid of the love for the art allowing to you to flip the hamster shut between the pages of Helmut Newton's twenty kilogram artwork album? Finally, what's with this disgusting habit of never closing the bathroom door? You think you're allowed anything only because you live alone? Nay, you're not! Not allowed to get in the way of the natural way of things! The hamster must be crushed! Look into its face, into its constitution, its gestures at the very least: it's so innocent, pure, friendly and in high spirits it's definitely knowing of its untimely end, in a manner Dickens' characters do. The hamster's too good for this world; don't dissappoint it.

The fact that hamster and Death are made for each other doesn't mean you'll deal with your pet's death easily. Some suffer so much they own two hamsters (every time): a male and a female, so that Death would always have a good hunt in a rich turf. In response to that Death, with a characteristic simplicity, prevents the problem in the first place: I know a story about a couple of hamsters tenderly in love who during the consummation rocked the cage so hard it fell off the shelf and taking their lives along with it. (A beautiful death, not for those who cleaned the cage afterwards though of course). Other death avoidance and suffering evasion specialists take more seious measures. Their tactics is well illustrated by a story of a hamster that never died. S., its owner, was six when the red-and-brown devourer settled in its cage on a windowsill. S. loved the devourer dearly and took good care of it up until fifth grade: during the very first week a classmate invited to their house had asked how old is the hamster. "Let me count", she said, and indeed counted. The guests were offended and startled. S. counted once more but the number was still the same. That was the moment the awful truth came to light: her parents were so afraid for the poor girl's psyche that when the hamster did die (don't know how unfortunately), they went and bought an identical hamster. Several days passed in tension: fortunately S. didn't notice a thing. Hamster Zero was buried in a trash can. Unfortunately Hamster One didn't last either: its life line crossed the path of a ping pong racket the parents used for wasps elimination. The trash can sighed heavily. The cage accepted Hamster Two. There was no way back now. The hardest part for S. was the fact the parents couldn't name her the exact number of the current hamster. The death of this one was awaited by S. with the grim determination seen in anyone who wants to let the ghosts of the past go. Her anxious enmity to the little devourer was so intense something impossible happened: her last hamster died by itself. Simply lay down and died with no visible damage, heavy illnesses or skinny dipping in beer. Death obviously decided to try something bland for a change.

Those who (like me) see the endless line of untimely dying hamsters as something heavy and hard, making the world come undone in all its unjustified cruelty, can share my positive outlook.  Let's just think the hamster is an expendable species whose destiny is to open up the gates of the underworld to the others. See Lethe roll its heavy waves, see the boat driven by Charon afloat, filled with human souls. And following this boat, and before it, and alongside it (that's how I always imagined that) swim doggystyle the souls of smaller four-legged ones. And evey single one of them is lead by a small-toothed little frazzle-furred conduit, and the Lord blows the foam off its face so it all would be merrier for them.