Days, or a Week

Or more?

It’s a nice little place, warm and well-lit with pictures of dogs and cats on the wall, but it is not where I want to be on a Thursday night. I do not want to be in the place across from the big gas station with the big THC shop. I do not want to be a block from the grocery store where I went earlier today for the sole purpose of getting trash bags. I do not want to be here looking at my dog on a little foam mattress in the examination room, waiting for the vet.

Birch is calm now. Birch is resigned. They stuck him once and it hurt but it’s over. This is not his usual vet, but I’m sure the smells are the same. Antiseptic and fear.

I have a little plastic box with a button, and I’m supposed to press it if he has another seizure.

The first happened this morning, a terrifying event. I was listening to something in my studio with my headphones on, and I heard a strange keening sound - part of the soundtrack? No - that’s the exact frequency of my wife in distress. I ripped off the headphones and headed to her studio. Birch was pitching a fit.