Author: Chelsea Utecht
Today is the day our masters treat us to sweet snacks of expensive corn and sing a song to celebrate their love for us – “Happy Earth Day to you! Happy Earth Day to you! Happy Earth day, our humans!” – because today the orbit aligns so that we can see a blue glimmer that is the planet of our origin. While this day will come to the masters ten or twelve times, we tend to only live long enough to see it twice (and I was too young to remember my first time).
“Look!” My master points, but their eyesight is better than mine. I squint, and they laugh, ruffling my hair, which they keep short so it sticks up on end. They sing, but I’m still squinting, wanting to badly to see that speck in the sky they say my ancestors once owned. They’re talking about the loneliness, living among other humans in cramped boxes, sometimes ten in a family. They’re saying I’m lucky to have all this space all to myself, to never even see another human but a few times an orbit. They’re saying we used to have no masters to feed us and groom us and pick our clothes. “So sad,” they say, pouring corn treats from Earth into my bowl, but I wonder if it doesn’t sound a bit like ruling.
“Eat up!”
I want to hush them as I stare desperately at the night sky that is a mess of stars, but they’ll take away my treats if I do.
There. Tiny. Blue. Somehow mine. “I see it…” I breathe.
“Good job!” They clap. “Quick with your treats. It is time to sleep now.”
I turn to look at them, wide black eyes full of the only love I’ve ever known. And that’s probably enough. Certainly Earth hadn’t been better than this. That’s what they always say.
They whisk me away.
Happy Earth Day.
I’m grateful for my master.
I’m grateful for my corn.
I’m grateful for my cage.