SHIFTY – 1

After I turn of the fourth alarm of the morning- I’d set the other alarms long ago, in an attempt to wake up earlier- I notice that my body feels heavier than usual. Strange considering I’ve been loosing weight despite my desperate efforts to eat more. 

I try to sit up, but my ever shrinking muscles can’t lift me so instead I check my phone. First my social media. That reminds me that I have some writing I need to do, writing I was exited about a couple of days ago, so why does my body feel even heavier? Thinking about it and knowing I probably won’t do it today makes my stomach hurt, so I close whichever sinkhole I’m mindlessly scrolling though and open a game I saw and add for a couple of weeks ago. It’s entirely pointless. I’ve been cycling thought the same 5ish mazes so often that the illusion of progress has long faded. 

Beside me, my man starts to stir. He opens his eyes, gives my leg a squeeze and then picks up his own phone. After he’s had a chance to shake of sleep completely he asks me if I’m going to work on that thing I told him I’d do for him. As he does some invisible force wraps a long thick cord around my body, like a python wrapped around its pray, and ties me to the bed. I tell him I’m probably won’t. 

A little more time passes when I check the time. In an instant I’m up. It’s an entire hour later then when I usually feed my dog. She must be getting hungry. 

A LITTLE STORY FROM MY DOGS PERSPECTIVE

They all love me pretty quickly, the people i meet.

“It’s her eyes.” My mamma tells people. Apparently I have ‘sweet eyes’, whatever that means.

They always want to pet me and play with me and they talk to me much more than they do with Shifty- thats my sister, shes been here longer than I have.

I don’t think people love Shifty as much as they love me. They say her name and try to pet her, but when she doesn’t respond or looks at them funny they stop trying.

Only a few people really love Shifty, like my mamma and my friend Tequi’s mamma. But they don’t love her the way they love me- or Tequi.

They love Tequi and I by playing with us and cuddling us and teaching us how to be good so they won’t have to scold us so often. They give us toys and sometimes even play with those toys with us.

But with Shifty, They love her by saying sorry when they make her jump, or by leaving the couch so she can sit on it alone. They love her by letting her come to them for pets and slacking on her training.

My papa loves her too, but he’s not as good at it. He approaches Shifty too fast and scares her too often, but I think he doesn’t mean for it to happen .

And I know that Shifty loves papa too. She’s told me as much. Papa goes on longer walks and finds tastier food for us. Usually he forgets he’s a papa, but when he remembers he tries to make up for it.

Shift says mamma and papa fight sometimes. They don’t bite each other but sometimes mamma barks loudly at papa and then gets very sad while he gets very quiet- papa isn’t usually quiet. He loves to tell people things.

Shifty also says sometimes mamma leaves and she either goes with her or stays. And when this happens she never knows how long it will be before they are all back together again.

Personally, I only just found this little family and I really hope we can all stay together always. And that includes Tequi, Murphy, Panda and their mammas and papas too.