Every morning, just before dawn was swept away by the sun, Ozzy opened his window to see his mother standing in the street. From three stories up, she seemed just as plain as any passing mammal in those twilight hours, but he knew. The hyena could smell it. Her scent skittered across the asphalt, crawling up the cracks in the wall until it wedged itself into the apartment. On rainy days, the room stank of her. Today, she wore a tattered, violet sundress that rippled in the wind.
"Hi, mama," he whispered.
"Hey baby," she said, smiling. "How's my little yeen bean doing?"
His heart clenched.
"Growin' every day. Big and strong," he said, grinning weakly.
Down below, she clasped her paws together, thumbs mingling.
"Good. Oh, you'll be such a handsome mammal when you grow up, Oz," she sighed. "I just know it."
The hyena's words fumbled around in his muzzle as the woman stretched her neck towards the first new beams of light. They made her fur shine golden brown and his throat close tight.
"I should be gettin' to bed soon. Long day of work tomorrow."
She didn't look away from the sun, but a frown briefly flickered over her face.
"Oh," she said. "Can I tell you a story before you leave?"
Ozzy shifted, gripping the windowsill. His claw dug into a dead fly, the carapace folding with a solid crunch.
"Of course, mama."
The woman's face relaxed, then spread into a smile. Even three stories up, he could somehow see the lines of each tooth as her face ripped apart at her lips.
"It's about when you were born," she said. "See, most kits cry when the doctors bring them into the world, but you were different. You came out smilin', sweetie. Smilin' so big it looked like you were ready to swallow the world."
Anxious worms writhed in his stomach. He began to pick at the colony of scabs along his neck.
"Thanks, mama. That was real sweet," he said. The rest of his words clogged in his throat, congested with melancholy and anxiety.
And with that, the woman flickered like a broken street lamp, gone in an instant, taking with her the smell that filled the apartment like smoke and a part of his heart.
The hyena stared down at the empty street before shutting his window, crawling into bed, and shedding a few tears before falling to sleep.