Heroes of Language (Part II)

My grandfather told me stories about his friend, an Indian named Enchanted Medicine Dog, and it wasn't until I began working in the library that I was able to guess that his old buddy had been the Sioux warrior Crazy Horse.

My cat is named Pencil and it has recently become apparent that she actually wants to write. Her scrawlings, from stylus held most clumsily between paw and tooth, cannot begin to yet be called language, but there is a meaning rich with feline sensibility and a kind of creeping logic there.

My fish, lock in their glassy locus, have taken to strange loopings that, when traced with soap slivers or grease pens along the aquarium planes, reveal alphabets or perhaps pictograms that point to icthic futures.

My wife, when sleeping, groans softly and runs her hands along my scalp to trace another man's name there.