Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies

by Caitlin Doughty

To be fair, death is hard! We love someone and then they die. It feels unfair. Sometimes death can be violent, sudden, and unbearably sad. But it’s also reality, and reality doesn’t change just because you don’t like it.

We can’t make death fun, but we can make learning about death fun. Death is science and history, art and literature. It bridges every culture and unites the whole of humanity!

For hours, even days, after your death, Snickers will expect you to rise from the dead and fill his normal food bowl with his normal food. He won’t be diving straight for the human flesh. But a cat has got to eat, and you are the person who feeds him. This is the cat-human compact. Death doesn’t free you from performing your contractual obligations.

“Why would my beloved do that?” you ask. Let’s keep in mind that, as much you adore your domesticated meowkins, that sucker is an opportunistic killer that shares 95.6 percent of its DNA with lions. Cats (in the United States alone) slaughter up to 3.7 billion birds every year. If you count other cute little mammals like mice, rabbits, and voles, the death toll might rise to 20 billion. This is an abject massacre—a bloodbath of adorable forest creatures perpetrated by our feline overlords. Mr. Cuddlesworth is a sweetheart, you say? “He watches TV with me!” No, ma’am. Mr. Cuddlesworth is a predator.