I pop my head out the door, like a meerkat. Looking left, then right, then left again before noticing a package down on my doormat. I grab it. I duck back inside. Safe in my little home, wishing it was underground.
At the grocery store, my eyes are furtive. Anticipating, distrusting, fearful. I stand in the open ground before strategically darting to gather my sustenance. Like the squirrels in the park.
I want to mate, but I know it is risky. If I leave simply to find a sexual partner, I may die. Him, too. Our union might make our friends and family mad. Like a mongoose. I fear it won’t even be good.
My period comes and I take a mini hibernation, bear-like. Horizontal, full and bloated but safe from the harsh elements outside. When I emerge again, I will be disoriented and hungry.
There is a neon buzz for the ‘open for patio dining’ sign at that spot on the corner that used to have a great parking lot and now has a great patio. I see people flock to it. I wonder if, like mosquitoes, the light will slowly kill them off as they group together.
I try to stay in the periphery, but if I am in the thick of it all, I try to cover my face, my hands, any extremities so that the enemy can’t readily attack. As if I were a chameleon, not blending in exactly but becoming undetectable. Or perhaps an armadillo, living in plain sight but with an impenetrable shield on my body. Or perhaps even more like a turtle, ducking into the dark cover of my mask when anyone comes close.
I envy the ostrich and its ability to hide all vulnerable orifices in the ground. I begin neck stretches nightly.
I wish I could give away my healthy lungs and healthy heart and healthy body to those that need it and then regrow them again for myself. Like a sea cucumber. This feels like something we should have been working on more. I wonder if I should have voted differently for stem cell research in the California election.
I marvel at the elephant, the whale, the shark and the lion. Remembering when I, too, had no formidable adversaries besides humans.
I find myself wanting to live like the roach. Moving in silence. Stealthily but in large numbers. Resilient. Well-fed. But I’m not sure I could consciously be that disliked or acclimate to the necessary living conditions.
Corona has reminded me that I’m very much a member of the animal kingdom. Prey to a well-equipped predator. I am bothered by the constant display of my fragile mortality, but it feels kind of nice to belong to a bigger club.
I wonder if somewhere in the great beyond, the spirit of the Dodo is feeling a twinge of retribution; the ghosts of T-Rexes are waving their tiny little arms in warning. Or if the three remaining white rhinos are wondering if we get it yet.