The people behind the counter and the ones in the back, with
the scrubs on, are genial and accommodating. The patients are not. I look at
the humans with their animals and see worry and sadness. I feel the same worry
and sadness rising in me, shivering upwards from the gut to the esophagus. It
bleaches out my skin like a cold blush.
My cat is next to me waiting to be seen. Of course, I remember the first day you sat in my lap at the foster home, when you walked over and chose me, or when I took you home for the first time and you blinked and sniffed and tentatively stepped out into my life. Now you tap me with a paw like a human taps someone on the shoulder. You curl up next to me, often reaching out to clasp a stray hand. You tell me you need me and I, in return, need you too.
Remembrances like these sit on all the faces in the Animal Emergency Waiting Room, and I can see them, but there is hope also, desperate, defenceless, and uncertain hope.
Christian Martius (2016)
My cat is next to me waiting to be seen. Of course, I remember the first day you sat in my lap at the foster home, when you walked over and chose me, or when I took you home for the first time and you blinked and sniffed and tentatively stepped out into my life. Now you tap me with a paw like a human taps someone on the shoulder. You curl up next to me, often reaching out to clasp a stray hand. You tell me you need me and I, in return, need you too.
Remembrances like these sit on all the faces in the Animal Emergency Waiting Room, and I can see them, but there is hope also, desperate, defenceless, and uncertain hope.
Christian Martius (2016)
