ADAM WAS WATCHING some show he didn’t fully understand about the intelligence of dolphins. He knew he wanted to touch one, to ride one, to have a dolphin choose him as a companion. Then he would know for sure what he suspected to be true, that there was something particular about him. To be chosen by a dolphin would confirm that.

CRISPY'S SKIN felt brittle for some reason. Sort of staticky, electric. She rubbed her belly slightly on the carpet and chewed on the rawhide bone. The way it liquefied in her mouth was soothing. She was able to mark her progress by comparing the size of the bone to the size of her hands. It was good to have something to do, some kind of activity, even if you didn’t really understand what you were doing or why you were doing it.

AMANDA NOTICED, obviously, that Megan was walking up. Why was she with a friend? Who was this poor girl? Didn’t this girl know what it was like to be friends with Megan, and just how fucking horrible that was? Was Megan going to apologize with witnesses around? Amanda prepared herself for anything.

“Hey,” said Megan. “Do you guys know Anthea?”

RATS AND SQUIRRELS frolicked in the alleys and yards respectively. Groups of raccoons walked around, crossing between alleys and streets using the gangways. A drunk girl and her boyfriend were walking to the grocery store to get more alcohol, and the girl noticed two yellow-green disks and mistook them for dog’s eyes, since they were attached to a head that was peeking out between the bars of a fenced-in yard. She thought the dog would be cute and she would say hi to it like she liked to do when she was drunk. As they got closer to the animal, she saw eight total of those yellow-green disks, realized they were raccoons, enormous raccoons, then screamed.

“Ah!”

“What?!” said her boyfriend. He put his arms around her. “What?”

She crouched down and started laughing hysterically. “Those fucking raccoons! I thought they were dogs. Oh my god, they’re so fucking creepy.”

“Let’s cross the street,” said the boyfriend.

“Ok.”

The raccoons watched the couple, perhaps understanding that they’d been laughed at. One of the raccoons belched softly.

THE WIND RUSTLED the leaves, and the trees appreciated the feeling. A bird who was still awake sat on the branch of one of the trees and felt the warm breeze and listened to the sounds of the trees and the cars and smelled all of that freshness, and he inhaled, puffing up his cute little breast, and felt like he might cry, if only he could cry. If he could, he would, but out of an appreciation of beauty and inevitability, not out of sadness.