--YOU SCREAMED AT THE MAKE-BELIEVE, YOU SCREAMED AT THE SKY

 

 

Animal Planet

 

 

When The She Wolf got hungry or excitable, it was best to become mist if you could, a vapor, or some floating thing aiming for escape in any sliver or crevice.

If The Bear was there, tomorrow had already become a blackout fantasy, an exit ramp closed off with lights flashing like burst blood corpuscles.

Bear did The She Wolf’s handiwork, red spatter be damned. He was a cuckholded robot wearing fur and donning all kinds of odd torture implements. His favorite thing to say seemed to be, “It’s your turn.”

Sis and I, twins, at eleven years, had the same vision of our future, though for laughs, we took turns guessing which of us would live longest, or wouldn’t.

The She Wolf had a new plan to get more rodents, something called Fostering. She told us in the kitchen right before The Bear shot an arrow through the window above the kitchen sink stuffed full of stink. The glass shards went tapdancing across the pus-colored Linoleum. In a way, it sounded like applause, and so I did the only thing that came to mind—I stood up and clapped, never once looking over at Sis.