Tweak: “What’s wrong with her?”
Me: “Storm.”

It’s 4:00 a.m. I am lying on my back in bed. Tweak is lengthwise along my right side like a job shadow. On my left, on the floor, is a locomotive.

Tweak rolls just enough to knead her claws into my armpit: “But what’s WRONG with her?”
I fold a corner of blanket over my shoulder so she doesn’t draw blood. “The thunder frightens her.”

Bowie-dog is huffing like a freight train on the floor. She has scrabbled her body as close to the bed as possible. Her head is under a dresser. She is panting like the little engine that hates me.

The lightning flashes. My lips tickle. I open my eyes to see Tweak’s face six microns from mine. She is silently inhaling the night from my mouth.

Tweak: “She’s weird. All that breathing. Can’t you do something?”
Me: “No. I’ve tried. 11 years I’ve tried. There’s nothing for it except to let it pass.”

Tweak climbs down my abdomen and plants a foot into my bladder. “I don’t know how you put up with her.”

18 June 2014, “Tolerating Tweak.”

Tolerating Tweak — “Panting the Storm Out”

Illustrations by Susie Winnie Morrison.