At times,
Awoken by the sounds of scratching, I found myself in the room, alit by the soft yellow light of a lone street lamp through the trees. Scratching above my head, as the wall my body points at is shared by a garage. Scratching on the wall. Scratching in the wall. The wall is alive. It is filled with straw, a maze for the small things. The plaster is old and crumbles easily. It is moving. It is above me. The room is awash with the sound. Light dances across the floor, the bare walls. Movement, silence, presence. Its small body pauses on the quilt, the pattern alive with possibility. It moves slowly, much slower than it scratched, smelling, searching. When I move, it doesn’t. Acknowledges my presence, yes, but doesn’t away. It turns its head as the light crosses its path and I take it with no difficulty. There is nothing sharp about it, but it moves, writhes. The tail whips against my arm, sturdy like a power cord. I am alight. I am across. And I kneel, the maw of the bowl agape, and it is plunged. The electricity discharges and the beast thrashes. The howl that does not escape is in my throat, my head. The smallest bones vibrate, dissonance.