Two Tails
an episode
(3)
[Some weeks later.]
The Sheep was hungry.
Starving, in fact.
Ey vaguely recalled previous thoughts about grass. About eating grass (or was it leaves?) instead of meat. Ey hadn't minded much, either way, but ey remembered a feeling of sympathy for Meaty Things, like the old Cow that had stared at them from across the pasture some miles back and had listlessly ignored the Dog's yappy curiosity. This patch of weeds, however, seemed quite different from what eir image of Grassy Things had been. It was quite a depressing thing, indeed, to think that this was it. Eir diet for the next… Just how long did Sheep live, anyway?
Ey didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Thankfully, ey could do neither, so ey bleated, instead. It was a lonely bleat. More lamb than ram or outraged ewe. It felt weak in eir throat, but nobody was listening, not even the Dog.
There was a daisy among the weeds, bright yellow and cheery. The Sheep knew this color meant something to em. Something happy, something that felt far away. Something that ey knew should have a face and a name, but eir brain could not make the connection. Perhaps from the time spent in a strange body. Perhaps from lack of food. Somehow, eir brain had lost its way. Despite the hunger pangs that cramped eir belly, ey did not eat the daisy. Ey looked down at it with eir slit-eyed gaze and bleated again, softly.
Another bleat answered em, loud and harsh. The Sheep instinctively scurried away off of the highway, and realized what that sound was the moment eir hooves hit the lumpy gravel of the shoulder.
Sure enough, a Car passed by seconds after ey got out of its path. And good thing ey did, for the Dog would have bowled em over had ey been standing there. Legs churning, ears back and tail flashing, the Dog looked like a rounded lump of muscle, struggling vainly to keep up with the Car. Ey was barking fiercely. The Sheep could hear em crying something about "sib" and "kill," but the bark was too hoarse, too wild, to make out the rest.
Another Car rounded the corner in the distance, headed swiftly towards them, swifter than the last. The Dog pulled up ever so slightly in eir mad run and bunched eir hind end to make ready to pounce. The Sheep grew panicked and called out eir first word in two long days: the Dog's name.
The Dog heard eir bleat, and, as Dogs do when they have abruptly become slightly Sheepish, broke down to a trot before nonchalantly heading back eir way. Ey stopped to sniff at the ground, leisurely, as if this chase and the Sheep's agitated reaction to it had all been part of some mischievous plan. Or perhaps the Dog really was sniffing at another Dog's scent on the ground. The Sheep could no longer tell what was acted and what was real.
Sheep were followers, as the Dog had long teased em, and panic was too ready to claim em now. The Sheep knew this. Ey anxiously shifted on eir hooves, glancing back between the Dog and the road behind them. There was someone else in eir brain, someone ey used to be. Someone not a Sheep. Someone who'd gone to sleep.
Ey tried very hard to think.
Very few words remained clear in eir brain, and only two that ey was certain were important to know. One was the Dog's name. The other was for something ey could no longer picture. The Dog had spoken it many times with an air of trust, and it felt, now, like a guiding post for the Sheep on their quest.
Mom.
The Sheep remembered what the Dog had said, the last time ey had mentioned this word.
Mom will know what to do.
The Sheep couldn't remember what "Mom" was or what type of animal it might be, but it seemed as if the Dog considered it a Safe Thing. As if ey felt this "Mom" thing was even more powerful than emself. And the Sheep thought that must make it very powerful, indeed. For the Dog had fought off the hungered wild Dog and its mate in the first night they'd found themselves stranded. Ey had guided the Sheep around the Snake near the creek, and kept watch all night against the Car with blue lights.
"Mom" can save us, the Sheep thought, and watched the Dog roll on the ground.
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