When the sun hits the belly just right, the body finally relaxes. These eyelids slide shut. All that remains are birds calling and the blessed heat. Occasionally car tires pass in the distance and my being flutters, but mostly I tumble toward unconsciousness. This heart only knows two speeds, and the downshift feels earned by a life of attention. The sun won’t slide below the trees for a while. I am comfort.
I’ve slowed, my breathing moves like the tide on a protected
beach, when a decade old import rolls to a stop on the other side of the
street. My ears come to attention automatically. My head lift off the concrete
porch. My gaze does not waver. The car shutters to a stop. Two mop-top college
kids crack the doors and sneak out. Immediately I am on my feet. These two, I
cannot tell their gender, head away, toward the doors in those other buildings.
Without willing it I bounce off the porch to the chain link fence. The hair on
my spine rises to attention. Yet, the two continue on, not noticing me,
mumbling inside jokes to each other.
When a bark comes I can feel it in my throat first, the way
the muscles clench. Sometimes I can keep it there, swallow it back down. If
they would look over here, give me attention, I might be able to stop it, but
that won’t happen. I let out a howl that vibrates from my wet nose to the tip
of my tail. I howl so loud it hurts. I howl everything that I am. The two pause
their gait and turn in stutter syncopation towards me. My tail shifts it’s
focus back and forth. Are they startled? Amused? I can’t read these ones. Yet
It wasn’t so long ago I was one of them. I recall my last life vividly. I
couldn’t tell what people were then either.
