we're bored on saturday. it's sunny but there are no riots planned and the government is simulated in some kind of fungal substrate now anyway. at the hardware store we buy some dog seeds, or rather i buy some dog seeds and you fill a basket full of tools with blades and then abandon it near a display of paint cans stacked into a pyramid which you push over when you think nobody's looking.
‘some of that paint's going to stain the floor forever, you know’.
‘that's the idea, yes,’ you nod.
in the back garden, which is really just the edge of the forest behind our house, we turn over a small patch of earth. you eat a worm on a dare.
‘i'm not going to kiss you now,’ i warn.
you stick out your tongue at me, and there are pieces of worm dancing around on it. each one of them is a new worm, and each one is already miserable to be alive. you run after me with threats of wormy kisses, and then we switch over and i try to catch you, but you run into the forest and pretty soon you're out of sight.
only minutes after planting the seeds, dog embryos begin to push their heads out of the soil, soft pink half-formed things that remind me of your tongue which i'll never see again now that you live in the forest.
at night you tap on the window and growl until i wake. your face is covered in dirt and there are leaves in your hair.
‘are you coming back?’ i ask. ‘i have the dogs now, but i much preferred you’
‘no. i'm a mammal now,’ you say, ‘maybe i was always a mammal’
i suppose maybe we both are.