Long Colds and Undetermined Breakfasts, for Anna

A small orange sphere meanders across the floor. It has stubby legs and eyes that move independently, like a chameleon, but it is not a chameleon, its name is Zuphonic. No one is quite sure if there are other Zuphonics or not. It has a very wide tongue and It likes to follow people around and taste the air behind them, where they scatter thoughts and wishes and pre-ideas and feelings that haven't been adopted by words yet. Zuphonic always closed doors behind it. It is very considerate. When it jumps, it is excited, because jumping is a way of renewing all the possibilities of the ground under your feet. Many things excite it, even though it can live in the same room do centuries. Zuphonic listens to the ground at night to fall asleep, where he hears trucks rumbling towards stars just over the horizon, and beyond that, the soft snores of animals who are very rarely imagined, because they have been catalogued already.