Saturday, September 24, 2011

Promises

Nervous, with big eyes, we stared. I, on your lap, you with a cigarette clinging to your lips, your arms around my neck. The smoke rising up and around stung my eyes a little, but I did not even whimper as the fur around my eyes became tear-streaked.

I know you were thinking back to that day when I had playfully killed a snowy-white duck, and amid the fluster of feathers, you had picked me up with a horror-stricken look in your eye. You had just witnessed a side of me you did not know existed, while I had also, quite gleefully, just discovered this side of myself. You might say I was feeling a little mad with power at that moment when you picked me up, away from what I now understand was my victim.

I recognized that same glint in your eyes today as you clutched onto me tightly. But I swear I am innocent! I’d learned my lesson the last time. I know it was wrong. That was the trade-off; all the joys of domestication in return for repressing this wilder nature, and of course wearing the occasional diamond necklace, or those seasonal antlers at Christmas time. But I swear to you, I had nothing to do with that decapitated pigeon lying under the table in the backroom, next to your favourite slippers.

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