Burying Lord Vole-De-Mort

My partner exists in a different time. While I flit about, worried that we’ll be late, he cracks a beer and tells me to stop stressing. About what, I can never be sure. Everything, most likely. When I’m ready, and only then, does he begin to dress. We are yet to arrive somewhere without his hair still being wet, regardless of the weather.

“Oh, is it raining out there?” our host will greet us through tightly-pursed lips, as we duck in the door to see that half of the other guests have already left.

No matter that the invitation asked us to arrive two hours ago. The party will start, my partner insists, when we get there. In his world, there is never any reason to rush. Surely, the concert can not start without us, nor could the airplane take off without us. I suspect that he is a solipsist, but he simply refuses to admit it.  

I have no control over his behaviour either. The best I can do is hold on. At a friend’s wedding, some time ago, I stood chatting with the guests of the bride. Our conversation halted abruptly when he sauntered past us, his feet kicking out in front of him as if he were off to conquer new lands.

“Do you suppose he’s coming back?” the girl next to me asked.

“Who knows?” I replied, knowing that he would do exactly what he wanted to, whether it left me without a ride or not.

My partner and I have a running joke that someday, he’ll find someone who is like him and they’ll take off together into the sunset. Only when one of their faces shows up on a milk carton, will he realize he was due into work three years ago and just never went. This could never happen, of course. Me, he’d forget my name without a second thought, but he’d still remember to call his mother no matter how remote the area where he ended up.  

For him, things get done in their own time, which brings us to the voles. About a year and a half ago, the second-hand hot tub that sits in our backyard broke for good.

It was somewhat amazing that this hadn’t happened earlier. When he’d inherited it, the thing had so many squirrels living in it that, when he opened it up, it was almost entirely filled with peanuts. After its repair, it limped on for another couple of years, but now it sits, a defunct behemoth in our backyard.

He’d meant to get rid of the hot tub last summer, but then it snowed, and that was sort of that for the season. Over the winter voles moved into the insulation, perhaps sensing that it had once been an acceptable home to another species of rodent. Come spring, we had the odd little trails cut into the grass of our backyard.

Due to Covid cuts, the city no longer takes care of such things for you, so we had to deal with them ourselves. I bowed out, knowing that if I were involved, we’d just end up with half-a-dozen tailed pets. So, my partner set traps alone in the yard and waited.

We got a little furry guy the other day. I found him, paws up in the yard, his soft underbelly showing to the sky. And of course, I wanted to bury him. Because the ground was frozen, my partner and I met in the middle. He threw the vole in the trash, and as he stalked across the torn-up lawn shaking his head, I played Echo Home by The Kills as a send off for the little fella.

Ever since, I’ve haven’t been able to let the vole’s death go. Instead, I’ve been suggesting names for the deceased.

“How about Lord Vol-De-Mort, or Volly Parton?” I’d tried.

“I see what you’re doing, and I hate it,” was all he’d say.

The hot tub, I’ve no doubt, will still be there when it snows. Because that is his way. Perhaps next year it will house something truly impressive, like a family of coyotes or a full-grown moose.

But the worst thing about all this, is that I know my partner isn’t wrong about all this. If I could be as relaxed as he is, my life would be better—more full of voles certainly, but better.

Right now, I could be on an island somewhere, lounging on a deckchair, lazily skimming the Arts section of the newspaper. I would be completely unaware that beneath a headline reading “Missing,” was my face on the front page.

Prairie Spacewoman. Regina, Saskatchewan. 2020.