Rabid

I always know when It gets restless. It takes a step this way, and a couple that, pauses, and thumps Its paw on concrete earth. It imagines that this will shake the traffic off the road, bring down some trees, cause a fire, but nothing happens. It bites Its nails. The tttttraffic, making metallic, shrill, nonchalant hammerings on the eardrums, honks its way past time. The gaussians of the pitch, the slow, sure ascents to deafening heights and the reluctant, inevitable descents back to silence, disturb, irritate and taunt It. It knows that time is going to win this race. It thumps its paw again, pauses, then thumps every one and a half seconds for the next five minutes, salivating, red, shivering, rabid. It throws up a low, rattling growl from Its stomach, clenching Its teeth so hard, wanting something to ttttttttttttear apart into atoms. It bites Its wrist, pushing the teeth into the flesh but not closing them as tight as It would, and so pushing as hard as It can - torn between the urge to vent and the sense to fear. The first pangs of pain shoot through Its nerves, and Its shivering drops a hertz or two. More pangs follow, and It gets calmer. Soon, It brings Its mouth out. Its wrist is red and wet, dented. It tries thumping again, but there is not enough strength this time. It stands still.

I always know, that then, It gets hot. Beads of slimy sweat appear on Its forehead, join into streams of pale colorless yellow and niagarate into Its eyes. Into the red, lightning-shaped veins of Its burning eyes. It stands still. The falls get heavier. A fly buzzes into the steamy halo around Its ear and takes three close peeks at the wax. It stands still. It seems, suddenly, the traffic has gone quiet too. It hears a pig being repeatedly battered in the head, a repetitive train of low thuds miles away. The fly sits on the wax, and It feels itchy. It stands still. A cool waft of breeze blows past. Niagara dries into menthol, the fly glides high into the air, hits a blade hanging from an electric wire, which pierces first its wing, then its body, then its other wing, perfect metosis, both parts fall on the concrete earth, disturbing the rhythm of the head-battering of the pig, and the plasma and the white corpuscles of its one drop of blood coagulate before falling on Its nose.

I always know, that this is when It wags Its tail four and a half times.