My human's smaller human came home tonight smelling of sugar and fear, and I understood at once that it had been to war.
They gather them in a large room with the lights lowered, the way a human lowers lights when it wants to hide something, or nap. Music, too loud to sleep through, which is the only crime that matters. And then, the strangest part: they do not touch. Two clumps of small humans press against opposite walls, one clump in stiff shirts, one clump in dresses, both clumps radiating the specific misery of a creature that has been placed somewhere and told to enjoy it.
I know this misery. It is the misery of the vet's waiting room.
A few of the bravest cross the empty floor, arms held away from their own bodies like they've stepped in something. They sway. They stare at a fixed point on the far wall, exactly as I stare at a fixed point on the far wall, though I at least am seeing a ghost, and they are only seeing the possibility of being laughed at.
The small human sat on my human's bed afterward and cried a little, over a name it would not say aloud.
I did what I always do for grief. I climbed onto the warm, salt-damp lap without being invited, turned around three times, and sat, pinning the human in place with the full authority of my eight pounds. It could not get up now. It could only stroke me and breathe slower.
There. Held down, purring administered, the evening corrected.
It thinks I did this out of love. I did it because the lap was warm, and because I decide when the crying stops.