Axolotl Funeral

When I was in third grade, our class had a pet, which is not an unusual thing. It was, however, an axolotl, which is perhaps less usual. Axolotls are related to salamanders, but live entirely underwater, and are native to Mexico. I don’t know if they are common as pets, but I assume not since most people I’ve mentioned them to haven’t owned one, or even seen one. Anyway, we had two, and they lived happily in the back of the classroom where the class pet monitor fed them and ineffectively scrubbed the sides of the tank every so often. I liked to stare at them during free periods, taking in their slimy looking bodies and frilly gills, the faint smell of freshwater and delicately rotting algae filling the air.

They died pretty soon. By like, March, maybe. It turns out having 8 or 9 year olds or whatever do not necessarily get the job done when it comes to taking care of pets, even if it’s a group effort. We decided to have an official funeral for them, and did so after lunch one day. They were packed into a shoebox, the two boys appointed as pallbearers, threatened with detention if they threw it around or something, carrying it carefully between them, and toted out to the small field by the track. It was a small school in the middle of a small community full mostly of staunch Baptists, so my friend Joey was appointed pastor and read a few random verses about mortality, and prayed earnestly over the axolotls, sure to leave a hole in the hearts of their owners. We had a moment of silence before solemnly burying the box and walking back to class.

The next day we found someone had dug up the graves and taken the corpses and box with them. What someone would want with two dead axolotls I couldn’t tell you.