Do you want the good news or the bad news first? he asks, and I think, now he will ask me to sit down or if I’m by myself. Bad news, I quiver.
The bad news, he says, drawing it out and me in my bare, packed-up room with not enough lights, is that the hamsters are both dead.
Oh, I think of Chrisie, that’s terrible. Perhaps it is a little bit terrible that I am relieved. And the good news?
The hamsters are both dead! He laughs long and heartily down the phone. They’re dead! No more squeaking wheels. He laughs some more, and there is not enough space between his laughter to say a word, until she takes the phone off him.
Also, she says, with him laughing in the background still, one of the snails died. She sounds a little bit sad, and a lot guilty. I think we may have starved him. Next time, I say, maybe we should get stick insects.
Goddamn Right 