The kitten was named Skins.
Skins loved his daddy. When he would come in, Skins would bound around to where he was and have him pick him up. At night, when we slept, he would creep in and lay between us for a while before getting to the foot of the bed or leaving.
We decided to get our Shepard while Skins was still small so they can grow with one another. My King left one day and came back with a rather large, dark brown German Shepard puppy. He was bred from a slew of police dogs. His paws were humongous, and he himself was pretty hefty for a magnificent pup. He was a few months old.
His name would be Marius.
Life was smooth here. We went through the motions mostly. Isn't it amazing how that happens? You have a sweet moment of reality, then you're suddenly back into the swing of things. Or rather, your back into the humdrum reality and your moment was the eye of the storm. Clean, crisp. Clarifying. I believe we live in constant hurricanes. Not all of it is bad no, but the sweetest moments come in those pockets of sunlight and breezes.
"Let's go to New Orleans." I said one night.
"Who will take care of Marius and Skins?"
"Our neighbor." I said.
He thought about it for a second. "When do you want to go?"
"If you want to we'll go, but that's up to you. I was just throwing that idea out there so we can do something different."
The sound of fresh skin rubbing silken sheets is rich.
He slid across the sheets to me, where he moved atop to lay there. His head was by my ear, his hands rested one by my side and the other on my jaw.
"It's a different book we read everyday we awake my dear."
His voice was warm. What dreams are spawned from.
"We take on the world from a whole new perspective. Or rather, a new perspective to today. We live in this present with the past's essence."
He was very poetic. He was a skilled marksman of words. They froth from him like shrill notes on a violin. They leak through him like the blood of vampires, like the distant echoes of memories. He can speak so deep, he can walk inside of you and you wouldn't even know. It was a charm of natural air, of millennial thought. In this we do not vary. We are King and Queen of an old age past.
"When you want. We can leave this coming week. Spend however long there."
I pulled his face from my neck and looked at him.
"We can do that. You sure you want to go?"
"As sure as the grass is green."
New Orleans.
