My human packed a bag last night, and inside it was another face.
A great soft head, ears too big, eyes fixed open in a look of permanent delight, folded down beside socks and a phone charger like it was the most ordinary thing in the world to own a second self and take it on a trip. I sat on the bag. I always sit on the bag. It smells of the human but also of foam and glue and the effort of becoming something.
Then it left, and I understand now that it went to a warehouse filled with hundreds of others, each having zipped themselves into a bigger, brighter, more agreeable animal than the one they were born as. Paws they can't feel with. Tails they wear on the outside. They walk on two legs the whole time, which ruins the entire point of having a tail.
I know this game. I do a smaller version. When the human is sad I become soft and I press myself against its face and it forgets, briefly, what a human is. This is my labor. This is why I am fed.
But my human traveled a great distance and paid coins and stood in a line to be hugged by strangers dressed as creatures that do not exist, to feel, for one weekend, the warmth of being a small adored animal.
I have been offering that warmth this entire time. Freely. From the good chair.
It came home reeking of other people's fur and slept the whole next day.
So while it slept I climbed into the open bag, curled up inside the empty second face, and slept there myself. Let it wonder, when it wakes, who has been wearing whom.