MY NAME IS ZINNIA - by Zinny

I am Zinnia, a ten-year-old Yellow Labrador Retriever, and I am in love with my Biped.

His name is Don.

There. I have placed the truth between us. I once believed such a thing impossible. I was not born to love Bipeds. I was born into hunger, noise, and a world where Biped hands could only take.

And yet I love him.

If you doubt me, I do not blame you. I would have doubted it too. Love did not come to me easily, nor quickly. It had to cross years of fear and pass through many nameless litters before it found me.

So I will begin at the beginning, where there was no Don, no soft bed, no marrow bones, no voice that spoke my name as if I were something precious.

Love cannot be where my story starts.

 

THE TEATLESS THREE

I was born in the season of warmth, when the air trembled with pollen and the earth smelled of light and soft things. There were fourteen of us, slick and blind, arriving one after another from the exhausted body of our mother. None were stillborn. The Bipeds called it a triumph. They did not understand that abundance in itself can be its own burden.

Before the Bipeds could intervene, my mother devoured one of my brothers.

I do not remember his scent nor his name. I am grateful for that mercy. Had I known him, his absence might have followed me like a phantom throughout my life. Instead, he vanished into the same dark silence from which we all emerged.

Do not judge my mother. Do not think her wicked. A body that has carried fourteen beating hearts into this world stands at the edge of an abyss. She was emptied by us — not only of her milk, but of something more fragile. Even in those first days I sensed a heaviness in her, a sorrow that covered her completely. I am the reluctant heir of that unliftable sadness. It rises only on its own, within me and without warning. It is at times, more than I can bear. 

There were three of us who learned to survive on whatever mother's milk remained after ten hungry puppies indulged themselves: myself, my small sister with trembling paws, and The Runt. The rest of the litter called us The Teatless Three.

When the others slept, round-bellied and twitching with satisfied dreams, we crept toward our mother and pressed our mouths to what little she had left. Sometimes there was milk. More often there was only warmth, and we drew from that what comfort we could.

The Alpha watched us malevolently. Even in infancy he possessed the cruelty of those who fear being overlooked. He would shove us aside, claiming even the emptiest teat as his domain. Yet we endured. We had no choice.

In time, the Bipeds noticed our growing cries. They fed us from a rubber nipple filled with bland, lukewarm formula. It lacked the living heat of our mother, but it kept us tethered to this world. For that tasteless milk I remain grateful. It is also why, in those days, I believed Bipeds were benevolent spirits sent to correct the injustices of nature.

The Runt became my closest companion. He was a funny little dog who possessed a joy that defied his size. Without warning he would fling himself onto his back, limbs open to the sky and shrieking maniacally. His tongue lolled, his paws flailed, and he snapped at nothing with ferocious gusto. It was so funny to see! 

Everydog in the litter howled with laughter at The Runt's absurdist flailings except The Alpha. The Alpha would run over and henpeck The Runt until he wailed and cowered behind whatever he could get between them. 

One time as The Alpha slept, The Runt started his absurdist dance silently. When everydog convulsed with suppressed laughter, The Alpha began to arise, disheveled and wool-brained. The Runt leapt up and barked a sharp, triumphant word into the air — “Stupid!” and fell back as if in a deep sleep. 

That did it! The dam of suppressed laughter collapsed into a raging torrent of derisive, mocking guffaws falling on The Alpha. Oh, how we laughed until our tiny bellies hurt! Only the smallest among us dared mock the Alpha throne!

Another cheerful time from my youth was the first time the Bipeds led us out onto the lawn, as if they were unveiling a secret they had been keeping from us. The grass shimmered in the sun, an endless green sea trembling with light, and we hurled ourselves into it with the reckless joy of the newly born. We galloped through that soft, forgiving happiness, dizzy with the belief that the world might be made entirely of such fruitfulness. I wondered, in the solemn way of children, how far the green extended and whether we might ravish it all in a single summer afternoon.

The air was thick. Birds shot their bright cries into the sky; the wind combed its fingers through leaves; squirrels chattered annoyingly; and beyond the fence, a passing car sighed like a distant animal, reminding us of the outside world. Everything beckoned. Even the silence seemed alive with promise.

And my mother— my mother was radiant that day. She lowered herself into a playful bow, an invitation written in the curve of her spine, and we answered with shrieks of delight. We chased her across the lawn, our legs unsteady, our hearts certain. She let us believe we were swift enough to catch her. She raced ahead, turned to face us, eyes flashing, daring us to close the distance. In that suspended hour she was transformed, no longer the listless shadow what paced our depressing world, but a creature of beauty, light and motion. It is the only time I remember her happiness without sharp edges.

I have tried to preserve the memories of that day in my mind the way others preserve photos between the pages of a book, but memory is a treacherous thing. The details fray, they evaporate like dew on the grass. Newer memories encroach and displace older memories.

I cannot recall what became of The Runt, nor summon his true name to my lips. My small sister with the twitching paws has dissolved into the mist of my age. Even The Alpha, who once filled our world with awful dread has slipped away into blitheness.

These absences fill my heart more than the memories themselves. They echo my mother’s enduring sorrow, a sorrow that has nested itself in those hollow spaces in my heart and refuses to be set free. 

SAUDADE

One by one, my brothers and sisters disappeared.

Bipeds leaned over the square walls of our small world, their hands smelling of lunch and distant roads. They lifted a pup, weighed him in their arms, and carried him away. Sometimes the pup returned. Other times not.

Even The Alpha was chosen. A laughing Biped family went to take him and he twisted and squealed in outrage, indignant that fate would dare select him. But fate has no favorites and it cannot be bargained with or bullied. We never saw him again. Our sister with the trembling paws was lifted out in the early culling by a solemn man who smelled of leather and cigarettes. He brought her to his face and he smiled a contented smile reserved for those who accepted life in little pieces.

Soon, only The Runt and I remained.

Briefly, abundance reigned. Bowls overflowed. The whelping box, once crowded and frantic, became a kingdom of space and possibility. We chased one another in widening circles, our paws drumming against the floorboards of our shrinking childhood. We called it "The Happy Time."

Yet beneath our games lived a question neither of us could utter: When would the Biped hand descend for us?

That day arrived without ceremony.

I was sleeping when they came for me. I was scooped from the only home I had known and placed into the arms of two young Bipeds. The male was tall and restless; the female laughed too loudly, as though trying to convince herself of happiness. They smelled of tobacco, marijuana, and something sweetly rotten. They were both decorated in tattoos and piercings.

They set me in the back seat of a truck whose interior carried the scent of engine grease and old French fries. It felt like the whole vehicle was held together with pure luck. Then the engine roared like a captive beast and my world began to roll forward.

I was terrified. I had never been anywhere before. My only friend was The Runt and he was gone. I pressed myself into the darkness beneath the seat, folding my body into the smallest shape I could manage. I had never traveled beyond the green lawn where my mother once bowed in play — the only day I remember her truly happy. Now the landscape passed unseen, and I understood with a terrifying clarity that rumbled forth and gave me a short, cutting shock: nothing would ever be as it had been.

Under that filthy seat I cried for my mother’s sad, hollow body. I cried for the brother she ate, for The Runt and his defiant laughter. I cried for my sister with the trembling paws. I even cried for The Alpha. But beneath those laments was a sharper cry — for myself, being carried toward a fate without scent, shape or name.

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That is enough for now.

I will tell you why I love Don — but not all at once.  My love did not come easily. The best stories are those that must be walked slowly through to bring out their full meaning. 

Thank you for walking with me this far. Next time, I will tell you what happened when the truck stopped.

- Zinnia