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forward dated to April 14

today, cam was one month old. not that he knew it. everyone else did, but not him. all he knew was that things weren't as mysterious as they used to be, at least not around here. everything was making sense. shadows weren't shadows but things, and he was a thing, too. mum and dad (khali, he thought) and ziggy and lana were things as were the flying things and the ground things and the tall, green things.

the problem was, he'd only learned a few names for these things, so he started making names up for them. likely completely unintelligible to the educated ear; random strings of vowels that made no sense and consonants where they didn't belong. some short, some long, depending on the thing.

the flying things were cheeps, because that's what they sounded like. the tall green ones were shshshhhshhhhsh because they sounded like that, especially when everything else was quiet. the ground things were drab and didn't make a sound, so they, obviously, were called, simply, hrngs—a wordless, muted grunt.

cam ventured out to find some cheeps today, taking advantage of one of mum's lapses in attention. (not that he was going far, anyway. . .he always got hungry mid-journey, after all.) he was walking instead of crawling, and his ears were aloft atop his head, albeit with floppy dark tips. it was warm and bright, just perfect today. he felt the bliss he always did when out and about, just him among the shshshshshshshhhhs.

but instead of cheeps, he found a long ribbon of green-silver, cutting through the forest. he touched his nose to the rippling surface—pfffft! something very cold and wet went up his nose, and he began to cry, snuffling and sitting back on his haunches with a scrunched up face.

ugh. all he'd wanted to do was play with the cheeps, and he'd found a lklglglklglglglklkklklllg instead.