max v. everyone

i am home from school today. there is a large puncture wound on the top of my right index finger, just behind the first knuckle. on the bottom of the same finger are three smaller punctures, opposite the large one on top. there is, near the tip of my finger on the underneath, a small dot that was intended to be yet another puncture but didn't quite manage. at the nailbed, my finger and nail are starting to bruise. max bit me. in my mind i've tried to blame others. guthrie or jim. the sweetie. but i distinctly recall max's surprisingly fierce jaws clamped on my hand this morning. i was impressed that he wouldn't let go.

this all started this morning when max realized he was too tired to keep being max and started trying to go toward the light. with his cloudy eyes and his stumbling, stubby legs he was having quite some bit of trouble finding it and maybe there's something to suggest he'd been looking a few days. but at some point in the early morning he had a screaming fit, the kind that promises with its sound a sort of pain there are no words at all for and so the sweetie and i were trying our best to figure out what to do. i chose poorly. max did not want to be touched on any of himself. i stayed home today in case he needed me. in case he figured out that light.

after a morning alone, eyes open but completely unseeing, unable to manage any of us, max wanted to be held. i wrapped him in his stripey sweater and brought him to the couch where he snuggled up against me. guthrie, who spent the morning afraid from the screaming, sniffed around max and ran back to his own blanket. jim, though, kept hopping up next to max. i was afraid he would hurt max accidentally and max would destroy him without even knowing but finally i figured maybe jim was working on instinct and since i had no idea how to make max feel better, i stopped shoving jim off the couch. he hopped up immediately and sniffed all around max. he hauled his giant orange self right up next to max, next to the busted foot and wadded up back legs and the tail with a furless hole at the end. he plopped himself right down on top of his dog. and i watched max's whole self ease into the warmth of the cat. his eyes closed for the first time since the morning's screaming. we spent the rest of the time there on the couch together, max wedged up against my leg, the stripes on his sweater moving up and down just barely with his sleeping breath, jim spread out over him like a blanket, warm and orange, his head rising and falling on top of max's stripes.

when the sweetie came home we headed to the dog doctor. they're so used to us now i'm surprised we haven't financed a new wing on the place. we waited in a room. max's photo was up on the screen, a few years younger, but cloudy-eyed even then and ridiculously adorable. the doctor asked us to put max down and let him walk. he started out unsteady, all shipwrecky and drunk, head twisted. the longer he wandered around, though, the more steady he got. another doctor peeked in and asked to see him, said she'd seen his photo up and just had to get a look at such adorableness. our doctor said good things. none of this going toward the light. max didn't have a clue what was going on. he was nosed into the corner of the room and was trying to figure out how to turn himself around. but my whole body turned into a balloon and floated all around the room. i put his stripey sweater back on him and grabbed him up in my arms. i kissed the top of his head maybe nine million times, knowing it makes him feel better. this is what i tell myself so i don't feel so selfish.

max came home. i don't know what will happen the next time, what we will do when he doesn't come home. but today guthrie is draped over the sweetie's chair, up against his neck. jim is resting with his head on my arm. max is curled up on his green pillow all by himself. but he is here and that changes everything.