Our Brief Meeting
Today is a blissful day filled with the greens and blues of mid-summer. I latch onto the safety of my sibling’s hand, shying away from the people gathering around the young huskies. We pass through the entrance of the house into their backyard, where the owner shares the litter’s genealogy with strangers. “Their mother is half-wolf, and their father is a husky” says the owner. The pandemonium of voices in conversation, chirping birds, and distant whooshing of cars in the street outside; all these sounds a whisper to a howling mother bear. I shuffle around tall looming individuals, only hearing her voice. She paces, singing her sorrows beside her beloved partner, in a small confinement for their sheer size. She is massive, her mate huge yet inches shorter than her, as they stand on four paws. I edged closer, searching her cavernous eyes; she paused, leaning into the breeze, searching the winds for inklings of her puppies, paying me no heed as I dared closer. They both jumped, happy to know that their puppies will be going to loving homes, but sad that this might be their last day with them. Dazed by their long and towering bodies leaning upon the quivering fence, I heard the creaking sounds resulting from their sheer force upon it. I study their beauty, and suddenly realize that no one is holding my hand anymore. I do not know how much time has passed, but I am now being called away from her maleficent presence by my sibling. I soon understand that my short venture among her family has come to an end, and I am blessed to be able to take one of her young spirits of joy home with me. On the drive home, I indulge in the winds from outside, staring upon the lilac hues of sunset, all my focus on the bundle of grey fur in my sibling’s lap, the source of many years of happiness to come.