The sky is made from bits of aluminum foil, pink sequins and blue vinyl, but by the time I've noticed its already changed again and become blue painted cardboard with orbiting paper plate planets stuck on; a cozy universe created with cell-o-tape and toothpicks and paper napkins, springing up around me like a junk drawer universe come to life.
The earth is made of biros writing things of their own accord on lined paper and my paws make a kind of soft vellum sound when I step, like the turning of a page.
I am a stripey-solid, plaid-polkadot monster hunting wild Howard antelopes across the waste paper basket plains, ravenously hungry but unable to catch any of them.
The predator in me longs to make the kill, and do what my instinct says I should, but the plaid parts of me aren't having it- they want a rest and a drink and a nap by a gently flowing stream.
I am a clashing question mark of a creature waiting for an answer from myself.
I see the silly hats and mustaches of the Howard antelopes bobbing up and down through the tops of the gently shifting, waxy candlestick grass. My heart is a slam dancing teenager, a riot of color in love with the thrill of the game but uncertain what to do with the prize once I've won.
The Howard antelopes dash out, their avacado and burnt ochre 1970s abstract patterned skins leaping away from the gnashing passes of my teeth, gone pointy and ill-tempered with starvation.
I can see the smell of them on the air, all tweedy and musty like a library book, but spicy and hot, too, like a garlic and onion armpit sandwich.
I follow the angry muffin colored scent of them over the line of the horizon, biro scribbles pulling themselves up in to something out of the vast white paper nothingness of my subconscious mind, becoming trees and vague impressions of mountains which might also be mounds of wet washing.
The Howard antelopes are so graceful- their movement is like a kind of dance. They mesmerize me and lure me, pulled by the growling in my stomach, but they're always just out of my reach, popping away at the exact moment I think I'll finally get one!
I pump my psychedelic legs, running shamelessly, endlessly after them, watching them scatter and recollect like magnetized pencil shavings.
The scribble trees roll along the page with me, and they sing lonely love songs to the wind, songs of feasting beasts and full bellies and sleeping safe in the warm crook of someone's arm because that's where you belong at.
I am exhausted from running, even the trees can't keep up any longer. The plaid parts of me are protesting out-right: I want a song to sing, a feast and a place to belong, they say to me.
I smooth myself out like a wrinkled shirt and lie down in the candle grass, the candy floss webs of the popcorn spiders sticking in my wild mane, decorating me with their glistening, sugary threads.
There's a crunchy rustle in the brush, a ripple of movement through the air, and a lone Howard antelope steps forward through the grass. Its tiny eyes are blinking, mustache twitching- unassuming, grazing, delicious.
Without a second thought, I pounce.
