No one wants to outlive their own descendants, and we’re currently in the midst of watching someone go through one of the worst kinds of grief imaginable: This little boy whose pet gecko passed away is wailing about losing his only heir.
So unspeakably sad. Poor little guy is really taking this hard.
Since finding his beloved pet gecko Zigs upside down and unresponsive in his terrarium earlier this morning, six-year-old Arthur Dearden has been inconsolably wandering his home and howling lamentations about “the fragile thread of legacy, now untimely severed!” Hearing Arthur’s heaving sobs as he mournfully declares that even the strongest roots can do naught but wither when the budding tree is felled by fate’s cruel axe, you can’t help but get a little choked up in sympathy. He had clearly never counted on out-living the small, leopard-spotted lizard, and now the pain of being left without a scion to carry on his line is crashing over him like a tidal wave, leaving nothing for him to do but gnash his teeth and rend his Paw Patrol pajama shirt in despair.
Arthur took it particularly hard when his mother brought out a shoebox to use as a coffin to bury his gecko in the backyard, throwing himself on top of it and shouting “O, to see the limitless horizons of tomorrow interred in a pine box is more than any soul can bear!” He then retreated to his bedroom to sit among his collection of Harry Potter Lego sets, running his fingers over them and muttering “Such grand inheritance amassed over generations, to be bequeathed now only to the ash heap…” Arthur’s grief over the loss of his heir is so all-consuming that he’s been refusing all food and drink, even though his parents ordered from his favorite pizza place for dinner to try to cheer him up.
Some wounds simply cannot be healed.
“Out, out brief candle!” wept Arthur over the still, lifeless body of his gecko, letting out an anguished ululation after remembering how it used to freak out when he’d drop a live cricket for it to eat. “Would that Atropos had turned her blade to my life instead of his! I am without successor, without future, without purpose, persisting only to suffer the cruel mockery of my own yet-beating heart.” Arthur has since locked himself away in his room, using an Etch A Sketch to obsessively design a grand mausoleum for the lizard that he also seems to intend to serve as a gravesite for his lineage as a whole.
God, you’ve really gotta feel for this kid.
This is such a heartrending scene. Here’s hoping Arthur’s parents hurry up and buy him another gecko ASAP before the terrible pain of his loss gets any worse.
