'Moo Moo died... she passed away in her sleep. Musk Ox is crying... but for some reason I'm not. I do miss her... very much. My room won't be the same without the tank on the bookshelf.'
February 12th, 2009 was the day my pet mouse Moo (sometimes referred to as "Moo Moo"; she was named this because she was white with black spots like a cow) passed away. If you have read through the original TMIWM site, you may have found this post in which I mentioned her passing. But there was more to the story than just this. I had never mentioned a thing about it on that website, but I believe it is a story that should be told.
I had originally received Moo with another mouse, a tan and white one named Oatmeal, due to their similar coloration, and her sweet, warm heart. Oatmeal was mainly my mouse (even though both were mine in actuality), and Moo was Jo's... she always referred to her as 'Bubbles' or something like that. I favored Oatmeal... I would always pick her up and play with her, and sometimes I'd pet her till she fell asleep in my hands. Moo and I didn't really bond very well. Though in honesty, Oatmeal didn't last very long... we noticed a strange lump on her back, which we assumed was a sort of cancer. She started acting strange, and then she died, the winter after I had adopted her. I was obviously grief-stricken. I cried for a long period of time. Oatmeal, who had died so young, was buried in the backyard as soon as possible.
All the time, I was thinking, Why did my precious, loving Oatmeal have to die? Why couldn't it have been Moo? It's not fair!
I paid next to no attention to Moo after Oatmeal's death. It may have had something to do with my anger and jealousy. I would never pick her up, and force my mom to feed her and clean her tank. Despite this, Moo lived a long life. However, Oatmeal's death seemed to have affected her as well; she started acting mental when her sister left and never returned.
Inevitably, Moo eventually died of old age. Her body was never buried in the backyard like all of the other pet rodents... she was thrown in the garbage like a piece of trash. The night after Moo died, I had this really weird dream... Moo was still alive, and I was holding her tank in my arms. Then, suddenly, I dropped it, and as soon as it hit the floor, this noise that sounded like the combination of a siren and a scream blasted the air. I woke up with it ringing in my ears, despite it being only a dream. In the days that followed Moo's death, her water bottle, which had since been drained, starting making peculiar noises for seemingly no reason at all. There was no explanation to the sounds, and it seemed as if they could not be silenced. It went on making the sounds, until one day when I was home alone. Being home alone with the freaky water bottle was creepy... I remember sitting on the stairs waiting for Jo's bus to arrive, the bottle's strange noises in my ear. Then, with sudden realization, I shouted, "I'm sorry, Moo! I know I was a bad owner, please forgive me!"
And the noises stopped. The water bottle never made any sounds again.
Was the water bottle a manifestation of Moo's restless spirit? Or was this all merely a coincidence? That's up to you to decide.