Ruffles knew something was wrong, something below her left armpit. It showed itself in the scent of her sweat, a sort of asymmetry in the chemical shape of her body.
How could he tell her? He barked and growled at the place, but she didn’t understand. The thing was growing, sapping her strength like a parasite. He snarled and tried to gesture its presence. In the end, he bit. He knew he had hurt her, but this was an enemy. People took him away in a closed basket, stuck him with needles, and he fell into a sleep so deep his heart forgot to beat.
***
“Oh yes, it’s been a terrible year,” she told her friends. “First Ruffles turning on me like that, then the cancer. But do you know, they only found the lymphoma just in time because of my injury. So it’s all turned out for the best.”
Fiona M Jones writes short fiction, nonfiction and sometimes poetry. Her published work is linked through @FiiJ20 on Facebook and TwitteX.
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