>Fierce thunderstorm raging outside.
>It’s not helping your insomnia.
>You decide you could go for some more of that inane ‘pet therapy’ one of your friends mentioned.
>You move through your house quietly like you did back in the unit until you realize that the enemy isn’t waiting around the corner.
>It’s just a bad night. You’re not always this tense. Perhaps it’s because the first anniversary of your discharge is in a week.
>Before these thoughts get any worse you wander into your bathroom and take out your pills from the medicine cabinet.
>You do all of this in the dark because that’s where you spent five years until. . .
>When the lightning illuminates the room you’re in from the window you flinch and wonder if you have been spotted. You should have been more careful.
>You swallow the pills dry and sneak into your kitchen because old habits die hard.
>Your turquoise Pegasus fluffy pony is fast asleep in a large tub filled with kitty litter.
>When a bad storm rolls in, you make her sleep in there after you feed her a slice of cheese with a downer hidden in it.
>You don’t like confining her to a cage as it reminds you too much of things the medicine won’t help you forget, but she would make a mess of the house if you let her run around with all the scary noises going on outside.
>You poke your fluffy pony in her side until she drowsily rolls over and looks up at you.
>”Mowning,” she mewls.
>”Not quite. You want out?”
>”Yes pwease,”
>”Did you do your business?”
>”Nuu, I do dat now.”
>She wanders over to the corner of the tub she has been keeping her waste in and relieves herself.
>”I done.”
>You grab her by the scruff of her neck as gently as you can with one hand.
>You make her lay on her back while you brush some of the liter off her belly.
>It’s easy to do this to an animal that trusts you completely.
>”Munstas still in cwouds. Dey stay in cwouds? You no wet in to get fwuffy?”
>”Of course not.”
>”I wuv you. Can fwy?” she asks.
>”Sure, we’ll glide. Let me turn on some lights first.”
>You would rather keep the whole house dark, but you want your fluffy to see where she’s going.
>Carrying her with one hand, you place her on top of your bookcase, which is the highest point in your home.
>She squeaks a little when the house shakes from the reverberations caused by a particularly strong bolt of lightning, but she doesn’t panic or urinate in fear because she handles these things better when you’re around.
>You sit down on the carpet and signal your fluffy pony to glide.
>She does so. Her little wings buzz audibly as she flaps them with all her might.
>She glides right into your lap. It is a thrilling experience for her no matter how many times she does it and though she may be a little loopy from the downer, her enthusiasm manages to shine through.
>This is much better than drinking yourself into a stupor while you try to answer impossible questions.
>Eventually she just wants to snuggle in your lap and you move to the couch.
>”Wiw I evah fwy?” she asks, slightly disheartened.
>”You just did.”
>”Nuu, not same.”
>You’ve had her for about a month and she asks this question constantly.
>”You’ll only be able to glide and you should be happy that you can do at least that. We can’t have everything we want.”
>For example, you’ll never get your right hand and most of the arm that went with it back, but you sure can hope that it will miraculously return.
>”Besides, you don’t want to be close to the monsters in the clouds, do you?”
>She gasps. Perhaps this time she will remember the lesson.
>“You wight! I wan’ stay cwose to daddy ‘cause he pwotect me fwom munstas!”
>They wouldn’t even give you an i-Limb.
>After everything you’ve done for your country.
>”Daddy?” the fluffy pony mewls.
>She has noticed that your mind has gone to the Bad Place again.
>”I sowwy. I gwide and be happy I can.”
>If only it were that easy to ease your own inadequacies.
>Perhaps in time you will recover.
>For now, you’re still taking it one day at a time.