Everyday, I wake up to warmness, my eyes fluttering open to the orange vista of lights outside Helen’s bedroom window. She has grown out of holding me tight every night, but I still sit at her feet, watching her fall asleep with the hint of a smile on her face, protecting her against anything that threatens to whisk her away during the silent night.

Everyday, I stand on the balcony, my brown paws pressed against the glass. The morning breeze brushes my button-black nose; the chirps of sparrows tinkle my furry teddy ears; the extraordinary painting of the blue and white sky stretches across the horizon, soothing me, telling me everything will be ok.

Will it?

What if one day I wake up and all I find outside is darkness enveloping the sky, a blanket of smog, swallowing life?

What if all I see is dark, smoky fingers rising, gradually closing around the fireball of warmth that wakes us, choking it?

What if all I can sniff were ashes, falling in heaps covering the gravel path Helen used to run on happily; covering the vegetables Helen planted, with me carefully tucked away in her arms; covering the letter box where Helen’s dad put me into on her fifth birthday; covering all the memories I would never give away?

What if all that flies were purple, plastic bags, drifting through the air, replacing the sparrows with their chatters and the blackbirds with their whistles?

What if without the blue sky, the sun, the gravel path, the vegetables, the letter box, and the birds with their chirps, I become a dying sight myself, lying on the balcony as ripped pieces of fabric, knowing I’ll never see Helen smile again because I was ignorant to everything that made me truly alive?

I am not unique, but the earth is.