Animals

Anna met him at a coffee shop and they passed a couple of hours getting to know each other; she was pleasant and gracious at goodbye (appreciating his time, but seeing the eel face just as clearly as his human one). "How did it go?" Karen asked later (her adorable rabbit ears twitching). "Nice, but not a fit," Anna said, smiling. "Bummer," Karen comforted, placing a warm hand paw around her friend. Later, at the grocery store, Anna said hello to Paul in the deli (brown bear) and Debbie in the cheese section (rat), and tried to focus on the things in her cart to avoid looking at the general public. The hyena guy in the bread aisle made her nervous; the snail lady moving through the dairy section made her sad; she laughed pushing past the two meerkats with their mom. "Seeing the animal spirit within is a rare gift," her dad had said (putting his cougar forehead on her own), "but it will feel like a curse sometimes - blessings always do." Anna helped the elderly seahorse man count his change at checkout (he was so beautiful and fragile) and tried not to blush when Craig smiled and waved (his gigantic horse hoof) over at her from the next aisle. "That you cannot see yourself is not uncommon," her dad had said. "Your heart will show you who to trust." But she had been frightened then, not knowing who/what she was and she was frightened still - musing about it as she loaded bags into her car, watching a jackal and a crocodile enter the building (hand-in-hand).