Animals Die, People Ponder
Stories of people who handle dead animals. Don't worry — it's not as gross as it sounds. In fact, not disgusting at all. A story by George Saunders about an animal control man who falls in unrequited love. A woman who studies illuminated manuscripts, whose pages look like paper but are in fact animals. And other stories.
Death
"In my job, you can't just throw animals around. People will complain. You have to respect people's feelings about animals. Be more funeral director than garbage man."
Hicks, Clarence. Animals Die, People Ponder. Act 3 Dead Animal Man. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/51/animals-die-people-ponder
"She was appealing to live."
Brillo, Leo. Animals Die, People Ponder. Act 4. January 24, 1997. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/51/animals-die-people-ponder
"It's sort of amazing how the guy sees his job -- as just that, a job. Most of us see dead animals on the shoulder, and we ignore it or we play roadkill bingo. I think maybe most of us don't know what to make of this fact that to have the infrastructure we do in this country, all these animals are run over. It's just the way it is, the way it's been, so it's accepted as a necessary evil. I like that the veteran points out the idea that maybe the Earth isn't just for humans. I also enjoyed how the guy working goes from Grim Reaper to Angel, and then back to just a person doing a job, an undertaker. That's what he is for these animals, but maybe he does feel like he's returning some sense of dignity to them."
Vincent, Matthew. Review of Dead Animal Man (Clarence Hicks) April 22, 2007. http://www.prx.org/pieces/60-dead-animal-man
Dead Animal Pick Up
The Bureau of Sanitation collects dead animals free of charge, except for horses and cows. (For horses and cows, please check your local yellow pages for a rendering service.)
Could make for a potentially interesting photograph to follow a sanitation worker on house calls to collect dead pets from their owners. Would seem to make an emotionally charged image.
Poem by John Updike "Dog's Death"
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog!
Good dog!"
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
Updike, John. Collected Poems: 1953-1993. Knopf Publishing. 1995.
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