Animals We Made

Ash Land | Part 4

The animals rushed through higher grass. Was life no more than avoiding death? It seemed unfair, this contest of existence.

Mrumph found a thicket for herself, Chickpea, and Nico to rest in awhile. She labeled it a fortress and would not be persuaded that it wasn't. They groomed each other's matted fur. Kraa flew over them and squawked information they did not comprehend. Gunfire echoed, louder now. They would have to cross the battlefield.

A man in a gasmask sprinted past and saw them but did not react. He instead clutched his arm that appeared to be leaking, and he dove into the undergrowth.

Chickpea knew they must stay in motion, so he did something he never imagined he would.

He went out first.

Nico and Mrumph followed with care. The dog guided them, a determined springiness in the twigs he had for legs. He panted as the wind blasted him, and gunshots hammered both near and far, sending up pebbles and dust. Violence engulfed the animals, but they maintained their courage.

Discerning the risk of lingering in the open, they zigzagged toward a boulder. They crept along juts of limestone and watched the masked humans flail and shriek and unload automatic weapons in rattling bursts.

"These folks do not value our planet!" Nico announced, his eyes wide and shimmering like golden coins.

He relieved himself on the limestone then, and the dog glared at him.

"Wh-What? What?" Mrumph fidgeted with an acorn sandwiched between her paws. "What what what?"

"Quite unexpected!" cheered the dog, his tail back to wagging.

"Shut up, won't you?" Nico focused on the violence ahead.

Yet Chickpea would not let this go. "The feline has pooped without sand."

"It was an emergency!" Nico shouted, traces of mania in his cadence. "We have enough to worry about."

"You are like me!"

"Quiet!"

The gunfire began to fade.

Chickpea drooled. "I bet you even love your human."

Nico headbutted him. "Take that!"

"Ow."

"Yes."

"Unpleasant!"

"My love for humans fluctuates."

"You love them as much as I do!"

"No."

"Liar!"

"I will slap!"

"I will dodge, flee, and poop upon your poop!"

"Enough!" begged Mrumph.

Nico choked on what might have been a sob—if felines were indeed afflicted by such rudimentary emotions. "Let us hurry onward."

The dog, in spite of his nonstop trembling, didn't relent. "You must not be afraid to feel."

Nico cowered, his eyes two wet, yellow moons. "Being afraid to feel is feeling."

The rabbit urged the dog and cat toward the undergrowth. Fresh billows of ash expanded over them, and wilting lilies steamed.

"Ick of the millennium!" proclaimed Kraa among throbbing, jittery clouds. "Ruined globe! Farms in turmoil! Orient! Yearn!"

A house decayed at the edge of the valley, and the animals mounted the porch, their claws clicking. Nico squeezed into a hole in the wall, the dog and the rabbit tensing before following him, and what awaited them?