All was well lit though the sky was uniform in its greyness. The grass was bright green and greening still from the night's rain. His alarm clocks both rang and were snoozed twice before he rose and put on a collared blue dress shirt he'd last worn to see Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and some forgettable Czech. It was seventy degrees and the humidity hung like a deep-seeded premonition of evil. In the tall olive line of Norwegian Spruce the robins and redwing blackbirds were long at songs of joy and warnings. The cows at the end of the lane were deciding to stand or lay. In the dampness he saw the sweat of the day and muttered shitters to nothing in particular. Stepping into his car he turned the ignition and listened for what was to come from the radio. He didn't like it and fumbled through the console for Chronicles; the reward and wrath of righteousness seemed needed, Asa or Jehoshaphat in particular. The quick movements of white like heatspots before closed lids came in the right periphery as he backed onto the lawn to orient his car northward. Curly a surrogate mother cat and her nursling were springing towards a bush and flower patch that held a single tulip waiting to open to the day. The second kitten lay in spasms on the ground. He finished his turn looking in the rearview and saw the now permeable skull leaking red. Shitters. Stepping out he closed the gap and noticed for the first time the grey marking on its left side, even now corrupting, slightly the shape of Africa. Curly returned from the bush her head bobbing to the now soulless thing and the transient tom, Boxer, then appeared from the line of spruce. The garage door had a small section of the rubber weather stripping removed in the stead of the long corroded handle. It still broke from its traces easily. A brief scan lighted on a square of rust with a long worn handle that looked of fresh poplar. The head was upturned more than sharp so he had to use his foot as a backsplash to move the corpse on it. Even this slight nudge had the rubbery impression of lifelessness. Encephalon was growing out of the upturned ear red with veins of white. He carried it eastward to the uneven green growth next to a white corrugated steel machine shed that usually housed a green grain cart and flung the cat weedward. The effort was weak and it landed between the weeds and a freshly seeded cornfield like some splotchy spore growth from crust to bread. There it'll lay he thought and looked around to inventory the survivors. Then replaced his undertaking tool and wished the coyotes were hungry this night and shut the rasping garage door. Re-entereing the car he located the living again and drove off.