Following up on Alfie's death: Kuzco is in Portland now, and I saw Alfie's body yesterday.

Yesterday evening, Devon came up with Kuzco and Alfie's body.

Kuzco is indeed 100% fine. He's in the dining room/kitchen area in the travel cage set up atop a table, which will work just fine until we figure out longterm arrangements. He didn't exactly love the drive, but he's already warmed up enough to stand against the side of the cage and sniff out, and he's active and has a big round tummy, and it's fantastic to see him there. Yesterday evening he took a nap in my arms while I watched Dee play Dragon Age: Origins. These things are good.

After we got Kuzco inside and set up, I saw Alfie. This is the part I always feel vaguely apologetic for, because we all cope with death differently and there's a certain awkwardness to a corpse. An embarrassment, really--they become all biology, stiff and floppy in just the wrong ways, and you want to apologize: this is not the guinea pig he used to be, and when I loved him he was alive, vibrant, fucking batshit crazy, curious, wary, he put everything in his mouth, he listened to voices no one else could hear. But that's the point, really. For me, that's the point. That awkward physical body tells me that, yes, he did die; that yes, his body is just a corpse, now.

All of my pigs—Chumley, Dink, Alfie—have died without me. With Chumley I was on vacation, with Dink I was asleep, with Alfie I was in another city. I don't understand death well, for reasons that I talked about after Dink died: I don't have a good concept of time, I don't miss what's absent or gone. I hadn't seen the pigs since I came up here, but I didn't miss them—I loved them, and cared for them, but didn't miss them. Death at a distance is unreal, because it's a change that changes nothing. I hadn't seen Alfie for a few weeks. Now I would never see Alfie again. That difference is huge, but with the way that my brain works it was meaningless.

When I unwrapped him (and Devon's father had wrapped him, so carefully, in packing paper before sealing him in a box) and saw that first little tuft of butt fur, it started to hit home that the change did mean something. And petting him, dead and cold and so soft, made it clear that there was a pig here, and now he's gone. I can see the difference, now.

There's a lot of sobbing emotion tied up in this too, and I know I'm not done processing things. I've been keeping myself busy, consuming games and books and films and making sure my thoughts are safely somewhere distant. I'm taking refuge in the coolness and distance when I can get it, and if that makes me sound uncaring—or more fascinated by my own reactions than sympathetic to his death—I'm sorry. This is how I cope.

That, and by giving Kuzco lettuce leaves and bits of carrot. I'm grieving and I'm numb, but I also have a pig, this beautiful living pig, and he's soft and warm, and curious and hungry, and the glory of his life outshines all the rest. Alfie never did much like Kuzco (oh, is that an understatement), but perhaps he won't begrudge me that his legacy is in my love for that other small, furry monster.

As an addendum: a few notes about the circumstances of Alfie's death, and some thank yous.

I also feel compelled to say—on a halfway clerical note which makes this all seem even more surreal but ah, let's not kid ourselves, my emotions are beyond fucked up right now anyway and so my entries can be too—that:

Except for being dead, Alfie was in pretty much the best shape I've ever seen him: silky smooth, pleasantly plump, eyes and nose junk-free, and according to Devon and his family he was lively and engaged the morning of his death and his breathing was clear even after they began to notice problems. He was five years old when he died. (Guinea pig life expectancy is about 4-8 years.) So what this was is anyone's guess, but at least it was fast.

I am thankful for everyone's support. I want you all to know that—I just don't have the energy for individual replies, and anyway it would just be the same thing, over and over: Thank you. Thank you. Really, thank you.

I am exceptionally lucky with my support structure right now. That Devon was willing to come up during the week means a lot to me and helped immensely. He'll be here this weekend, too. Dee has been an absolute angel and for one I'm not being passive-affectionate because I have thanked her multiple times—but anyone that allow for an open-casket(/carboard box) viewing on her dining room floor and is totally cool with keeping the corpse in her freezer until we bury it in Corvallis deserves an absolute internet shout out, even if this is not necessarily how they want to be commemorated. Seriously, though: the love of others has made this so much more managable.

Book Review: The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber

Title: The Witch's Boy
Author: Michael Gruber
Published: New York: HarperTempest, 2006 (2005)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 377
Total Page Count: 102,901
Text Number: 295
Read Because: personal enjoyment, purchased used from St. Johns Booksellers
Review: When a witch finds an exceptionally ugly baby left in a basket—accompanied by a note that reads "the devil's child for the devil's wife"—she takes him in against her better judgement. Raised by a witch, a bear, and a djinn, destined to become a fairy tale legend himself, Lump's story is one of love and the birth of wickedness. The Witch's Boy is one of the books you pick up to read for ten minutes, and then put down an hour later. Its constant sense of discovery and forward motion are what make it so compelling: The world that Gruber creates isn't wholly original, but it's sufficiently inventive and colorful that it always offers another secret to uncover—but never edges towards twee, which is good because that would do Lump's story no favors. Lump's story isn't the only one in The Witch's Boy (his mother in particular is fantastic, and it's the depth of her character—and thus her relationship with and impact on Lump—that brings the book to life), but it's a remarkably well-realized tale, a detailed, realistic, painfully honest story of personal corruption, and what it is that makes someone bad. It doesn't wallow in the fact, but this is a surprisingly dark book. It's rare to sympathize and dislike simultaneously and completely, and heartbreaking, and an admirable accomplishment.

But The Witch's Boy has its weaknesses. It's ostensibly a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, but when it finally reaches recognizable aspects of that tale they're hurried and fairly plain. Lump's redemption, which ends the book, is likewise. Thankfully his isn't quite an instantaneous fix, but what makes the rest of the book remarkable is the well-paced, realistically rendered growth of Lump's character. Redemption wouldn't defy his wickedness if it were given the same care—but as it's not, it makes for a weak ending to a book that's otherwise strong. Thankfully, the ending alone doesn't ruin the book and—given the reader's well-fostered interest in the cast's well-being—the happy ending is emotionally satisfying. And so much of the rest of the book is worth reading, creative and compelling, utterly engaging, realistic and true, and presented in fluid, half-transparent, half wryly insightful prose, that I still enjoyed and recommend it. I don't want to oversell this book, it's not my new favorite, but I'd never heard of it until finding it at a used bookstore and it was an unexpected delight that I'd love to pass on to others. It has numerous flaws, but there's plenty to defy them and make The Witch's Boy a clever and engaging read.

Review posted here on Amazon.com.