Pern's head smells like fish when I kiss it, dribbles of wet food stuck there from our feedings. She's sick, really sick, and for a week (two weeks?) I've been force-feeding her with a syringe. She will not eat on her own.
We have a routine; I plunge the syringe into the wet food, food that stinks like fish and fermented bird and is the consistency of baby food, and I pull. Pockets of air jet in and I have to hold it upright, tap it with my finger, let the food settle and then push out the excess air. Plunge and try again, and again, until it's full.
I find her wherever she is and squat behind her, cooing to her and petting her head as I grip it in my palm. Come on now, good girl, yes, gooood girrrrl, I say as I prod her toothless mouth open with plastic. She jerks her head in protest. We're getting better at it, though, the feedings. She hacks and gums it down, miserably licking her chops. We're getting better at the routine, yes, but she's not getting better.
I'm guessing that anyone who doesn't care for an animal will not be interested in this. That she lies listless on my bed with eyes at half mast, curls against me not for affection but for comfort. On the one hand I'm numbly methodical about it all, following doctors' orders, stolidly confident they will eventually turn out to be useful because one morning she'll be bright-eyed and chirpy. On the other hand I'm so panicked I can't stand it. That sentence is lazy because I can't pry the lid off.
I thought I had more to say.
