My human has invited the entire loud half of its bloodline into my home, and they have brought the smell.
A great dead bird sits enthroned in the center of the high table, browned and glistening, radiating the one thing in this house I have ever truly loved: warmth. It is the size of a small dog and it has surrendered without a fight. I respect it more than anyone else in the room. I have chosen a chair at the corner from which I can watch it steam.
The humans do not eat the bird. Not really. They circle it, they photograph it with the glowing rectangles, they make the barking sounds they save for their favorite abandonments, and they pull small paper tubes apart to reveal thin crowns of colored foil, which they then wear on their heads like the fools they are pretending not to be. Everyone is speaking. No one is listening. The good chairs are all occupied by the wrong laps.
They keep offering me things. A sliver of the bird, held low, in a voice gone soft and stupid with wanting me to accept. Of course I want it. I take nothing. A gift accepted is a debt, and I owe this crowd nothing but my continued presence, which is already a fortune.
There is one child under the table who has been crying, quietly, into the tablecloth, unnoticed by the barking adults above. I go and sit against its leg. Warmth is warmth. It stops crying, which was not my intention, and puts a small hand on my back, which I permit.
When the largest human finally rises to carve, leaving its chair warm and empty, I take it.
It was always going to be mine.