A Time Me and An Animal Truly Communicated

I'm taking another writing class. This one is called Writing the More Than Human World, where the characters are animals, trees or forests, oceans, mountains, clouds, etc, and anything goes.

In our first class tonight, one of the prompts for a five minute exercise was "write about a time when you and an animal truly communicated, and write it from the animal's point of view". I wrote this, and dared to raise my Zoom hand to be one of eight people to read aloud to the class of 60.

In Tuc's words:

I've never been the top dog here. I was #3 when I arrived, #6 for her altogether. Life after the first year got a little scary. I kinda hung back. After Star was gone, and later when Xander got more difficult, Mom promised someday it would be just me and her.

That night was the fifth in a row when Xander wanted breakfast an hour earlier: 6am, 5am, 4, 3, 2. She was having a hard time. Always before, I slept on the bottom corner of the bed and Xander slept up next to her, even under the covers in the winter, but that night she needed me under the covers.

I came around to her front side, gave a little wimper, she opened the blanket and I hopped up and curled up against her. I got you, Mom. She hugged me tight, her breathing calmed.

I didn't do it again for the next seven weeks. Then she took Xander away to say goodbye and came home alone, repeating all day, "It's just you and me now, little buddy. It's just you 'n' me."

Now I curl up in that spot at some point most nights. It's just you and me now, Mom. I've got you.