Idiosyncrasies - 360 words

Angry Hourglass  - 360 words
Photo Prompt courtesy of Ashwin Rao

I have endeavored to behave myself these many years though Temptation lurked around every bend.  Maybe knowing my heart was always in the right place when my actions were not will soften your harsh judgment.   I did try to follow the true path.  

My parents tried to do right by me.  They even relocated to this game flush environment to teach me how to hunt, what to hunt, and when to hunt.  But from my earliest recollection, I favored the game more wary rather than the awkward clueless creatures my kind favored.  It never seemed a fair contest, culling from such oblivious herd animals.  The challenge was what I lived for, not the guaranteed meat in every pot our kind had settled on.

Mom promised my idiosyncrasies would pass when I became an adult.  Just growing pains she said.  She was wrong.  I was in my 30's when I stopped resisting and embraced my urges.  I decided I was but existing for existence’s sake.  Taking up space, living a treadmill life.  There was no challenge in living.  So, I separated from the clan and went my own way.

Word got around.  I became a pariah no longer welcome at the tables of the many clans scattered hither and yon.   I did not mind.  Listening to them justify their slovenly lifestyle by invoking entitlement and superiority made me want to gag.  Besides, by that time, I had lost my taste for domestic animals.  Sustenance was not just a full belly, I needed to feed my soul as well.

I left behind the comfortable space my kind had created for themselves.  And for the first time in my life, I found comfort in being uncomfortable.  I embraced the uncertainty of where my next meal might come from.  I was finally outside the box and I loved it.

I would love to stay and chat, but I am hungry and a nice couple in a RV has just taken up residence near my edge of the woods.  And Look.  They have a dog.  A big Pitbull.

If they let him loose, looks like dinner is served.  But I will have to earn it.
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