The sun is bringing out the critters, and today one perched right on the railing and it just sat there and it didn’t move. And I stood there behind the cursed glass and remained as still as he was, though inwardly I was shaking.
Shaking in my bones. Shaking in my heart and in my bowels. Shaking to have it. Shaking to inhale its soul into mine. And I pressed my nose against the glass door and let my watering mouth drip onto it. And that mouth water inched its way down the glass and it was the only sound you could hear and the only thing that moved.
And we stayed that way, all still and quiet and watching, and I don’t think the Bald Man even noticed for what must have been tens of seconds. But then he did. And when he spoke it was like it broke all the stillness I had left inside me. And I circled and my feet moved and my tongue came out. And I think even Honey made a noise that was something like impossibility, low and guttural and raw.
I have never been able to walk properly during a critter situation. I slide on the wood floors and my feet move and move but they don’t grasp at anything. It is like a nightmare, innit.
And all I can do is emit my battle cry, which in my head is booming and fierce, but when it escapes my mouth is like a noise a seagull would make or a hyaena on acid.
But it is all I can do. And so I do it. I shout it from my mouth and I yap and I yell.
And I burst forth from the back door and out into the sun and the crisp winter air, which is filled with the scent of scared critter.
Scared critter that has disappeared.
TAGS: DailyRothko | Dogs | Winter2013-14