The carpets were like grasses and the cold concrete floor was like river rock. The moon through the windows at night was like an alien eye, and the couches were like bounce houses. The plants were like forests, and you could get behind them in the corner by the wall and lay on your back and look up through the canopy out the window and you might as well have been born in a jungle.
There were furry, bouncy, rolling animals that moved like magic across the floor, rolling fast up to walls then bouncing back toward you when they attacked. I went nuts over them. I wasn’t scared at all on maybe the second time I saw them. I’d chase them down, my feet moving faster than my body across the slippery floor, then I’d catch them in my mouth and they’d play dead. They are dastardly, lying critters. I’d back up and bark and tell them to roll off but they were afraid of me. Don would pick them up and they’d jump from his hands fast as lightning and bounce like mad things off the walls and furniture. Don and I could hunt them for hours until I tore them into shreds. They reproduced in the cabinet by the sink in the kitchen. They came out of their nest all new like babies from a hole in the ground and would jump from Don’s hand as soon as he brought them out, running from me and scared like they should be. Then I’d catch them and they’d play dead. Liars. And I’d shred them for their inconsistencies. I’d even eat their fur and sniff their parts out in my poo.
One day I was lying on my back, watching the moon through the windows, through the canopy of the plants, when I put a paw in a pot and felt some of the cold earth. I stood up and smelled it and it smelled like the outside world. I put another paw in and felt it between my pads, in my claws, and it felt so good. I moved some dirt into a pile at the rim of the pot then shoveled the pile onto the floor and scattered the dirt across the floor. I jumped fully into the pot and with my front legs sprayed the dirt between my back legs and dug till I found the root of the plant and then bit the root so hard I fell out of the pot but still had it in my jaws. And I was wriggling out of the pot with the root of the plant in my mouth when Don’s hand, firm and painful, grabbed me from behind and pulled me to his giant face and his mouth was moving and thunder was coming out. His hands were like claws and I could feel his fingers wrapping around my spine. My tale went between my hind legs and I looked away. I couldn’t look him in the eye because his eyes were displeased. There isn’t a worse feeling in the world than when he looks at me with those eyes. He put me down and I ran across the room behind the chair and peed. He came back around the chair and stood with his hands on his hips, as giant as a tree, and reached down and put his hands around my spine and put me outside, in the cold, separated from him. I could see him walking around the house with towels and spray bottles. I loved the smell of towels and spray bottles but I couldn’t smell them from outside. I started shaking. None of it made any sense at all. I thought he was crazy. I couldn’t figure out why he’d suddenly turned on me.
