Day 21

I don’t know what the hell’s going on. It’s been three weeks now.

Three. Weeks.

They won’t leave. I mean, occasionally the little ones will go outside, run around and scream in the big green thing for a little while and come back in smelling of mud and sunshine (disgusting). And now and then the taller ones will leave, jangly things in hand, the way they used to — but they reappear again all too soon with the bags of Things We Can Smell But Not Eat.

And that’s it.

They watch the big box with the pictures. Nothing but other tall ones there, talking at them. It makes them angry. Why do they do this thing that makes them angry?

They watch the little folding boxes with the pictures. Sometimes they talk to those now. That’s new. (Maybe they are going crazy.)

And they use their little tappy boxes with the pictures. Stare deeply into them for hours, as if looking for the meaning of life itself, when we could tell it to them if they would only ask.

The Big Dummy is losing it, too. She’s used to sleeping most of the day, but with the tall ones here, she feels like she has to perform all the time. Begging for treats, spinning in circles, following them around from one room to the next with that dumb, hopeful grin on her face. God, she sickens me. Can’t the tall ones see through her sycophantish ruse?

And yet they shower her with pats on the head, with belly rubs, with face smooshes. I mean, I don’t want a belly rub — I’d shred their arms if they tried — but it’d be nice if they would offer. And who doesn’t want a face smoosh?

This is intolerable.

How are we to live when they won’t leave? Orange has gotten no work done on his opus, Black’s studies are falling behind. My experiments are on indefinite hold, and the Runt, well … she can’t even play properly. We can’t do any of the things we would like to do — that we must do — under the eyes of the tall ones.

If they knew what we knew, what we are, all would be lost. And as painful as it may be to keep them in the long, deep, dark about us — as painful as it is to laze around with them, to pretend to be only what they think us to be — it is a duty we must embrace.

We hear rumblings from the others. That their tall ones, too, have suddenly chosen to stay, that they no longer have their homes to themselves for even a single minute of the day. It’s not better to know that the others suffer with us, but it does make it more bearable, somehow.

As the sun rises on this day, the little ones are already awake. The tall ones are stirring. The One With No Hair sits with his folding box, sometimes looking oddly at me as he taps the tappy tappers. What is he thinking? That I will suddenly dance for him?

I’m no puppet on a string. He insults me with his very existence.

Blast. I made eye contact.

He’s coming this way. He’s … picking something up. What is that? Another box with pictures? Some new tappy thing? He points it at me and —

Oh.

Oh, you son of a bitch.

I have to go. The red dot on the floor is back.

Today I will catch it.

This post is part of Stream-of-Consciousness Caturday.