Member-only story
Longing and Love: An Allegory
But Longing is another animal entirely.
Longing was born blind. Longing is an animal that hungers for the undefinable. Longing roams the woods at an ungodly hour, sniffing the earth for an answer. Longing pricks her ears and chases anything that moves:
leaves, bugs, lizards, squirrels, quail, rattlesnakes, rabbits
She snaps her jaws and bares her teeth in the glint of moonlight.
Longing howls at closed doors, scratching frantically. She turns tail and trots through suburbia, scenting a familiar smell.
Longing lopes along the fringes and hedges. She pads through fragile seeds just taking root, sometimes deliberate. Delicate.
Mostly reckless, brash in her seeking.
Longing doesn’t like to listen. Longing doesn’t care to rationalize. Longing follows her nose.
Longing lowers her head to drink from the mirrored surface of the stream. She senses her reflection and snaps her teeth on the water’s surface, churning.
Longing hears a gentle lapping tongue and scents the familiar again. Her lips tremble, teeth bare.
Hackles raise and there is silence as Longing looks where she knows the other is but cannot see. Can only sense. Longing knows she is being watched. She freezes…
