The Reaper's Pet
I watched her attain a life of genuine happiness and contentment.
She surrounded herself with a string of pets: a Vertragus, which was a Celtic breed of hound, a house-snake, a fawn, a tortoise, a swan, a peacock, a pair of doves, a dozen geese, five green parrots, three ravens, a family of hares, and two monkeys. But when she finally lost the fight against old age and succumbed to senility, the names she was calling were those of the long-dead performers of the Cavea: Barrus the elephant, Artaxias the lioness, Innocence the white bear, and me, Rhaskos, in her rheumy eyes preserved in all my youthful beauty. She would often make hurried and furtive preparations for our elopement and make her
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