day140 - service animal
in year 9, my girlfriend was agoraphobic. the thought of leaving the house made her so anxious that she would throw up. after a few months of missed classes and promises she could never have been expected to keep, her parents bought her a dog, a robust little mutt with a smiley mouth and short, light brown fur. she named him Dipper.
the hope was that Dipper would be a kind of untrained therapy dog who could ease her loneliness and steadily desensitize her to leaving the house. short walks would become longer, and by focusing on Dipper, her anxiety had a harder time getting its claws in.
I broke up with her via Skype a month later. it was the closest I could get to delivering the news in person.
cats can't legally be qualified service animals in most countries. that exclusion usually comes with no explanation, but a lot of people chalk it up to their nature. they just don't have the temperament, the ability to be trained. cats are too fickle to be service animals— but, most sources reassure their readers, cats can be emotional support animals.
once I dreamt I was a cat. my owner was beautiful and i loved her very much. when she was sad, which was often, i would curl up on her chest and purr while she held me. we kept each other safe.
while my owner was at work, i would lounge around the house, occasionally crossing paths with owner's housemate, who was beautiful and kind and friendly too.
i spent more time with her, curling up under the covers when owner left. she was lonely too. i would lick the old scars on her arms to make her laugh. i loved housemate too.
sometimes I hid under the bed just to sleep alone. this made owner and housemate sad. they would squeeze too tight sometimes and i would scratch until they let go. later i would slink back to them, brushing against their legs with my question mark tail in the air as if to say "do you forgive me?".
if there is a god, he is so cruel for making a cat love beyond her means. that he could create such a fickle service animal. for her to be born to love, while everyone believes she is just a creature of insatiable whim.