Small dog walking herself
The small dog is walking by herself. The night sky is a dim orange-yellow-brown, like Autumn. The leaves are falling off the trees and crumpling up on the ground. They crunch when she steps on them. She sways hazily. Her paw gnashes at something on the ground and breaks through it. She yips. Her paw is covered in cicada-guts. On the ground, beneath the leaves, blending in with the orange-yellow-brown, is an old cicada. He was dying anyway — his people don't live for very long — but she can tell by the way he desperately tries to scoop his guts back inside the hole she made with her nails that he didn't want to die so soon.
She squats next to him and watches, her mouth agape. He struggles for some time longer, and then his arms fall limp, and all the guts he tried to scoop back inside fall out again.
She wipes her toes off with the leaves and then covers him in them. She starts walking again. Tip. Tip. Tip. Tip. The leaves come away to reveal concrete. She walks forward when she hears a second tip to her left. Tip. Tip. Tip. She turns, and there is the man. The man smiles to her. Admiring the beauty of it, are you? She shakes her head. I get scared. The man's lower lip folds in understanding. You've only been walking for a couple of seconds, what could there possibly be to be afraid of? She turns around. She looks back at the building she came from. The dining hall — it is fluorescent. She turns around again. She looks at the building she's going to. The residence hall — the lights are off. She turns back to the man. Being around here is scary. How come? It just is. I feel very small. He smiles. You are a very small dog. And you are very alone.
They enter the bushes for some time. When she emerges she is alone. She continues walking. Her toes are covered in milky white guts again. She walks to her residence hall — it is so dark — and she throws open the door and she walks into the darkness.
She will not gorge herself like today, come tomorrow, because she is out of free meals on her meal voucher — she used them up in the first couple of days of the week, sitting alone and sitting by the window where she can look across the path where her residence hall is. It is only 50 feet away. The only thing there is to be afraid of on her strange sideways route is herself. Because who wouldn't be scared to see the fat man lumbering through the bushes, hazily swaying side to side because he is not awake, dressed head to toe in fursuit and skirt? She can imagine herself so clearly, the way she would lumber towards people as if she was emerging from a nightmare, that she scares herself. Because in the dark of the residence hall, even from 50 feet away you can see your reflection.