The Lion in my House

There's a lion in my house.  He is small, but he is all Lion.  This is among the few things he knows for certain.  He knows that he is loved, and he knows that he's a lion, and that's about it.

I've been making a point to spend more time at home, and I'm now getting to see him sleep.  Little greengold eyes slowly shutting, tiny pink paws kneading at nothing, grabbing at the arm of the sofa, slipping.  I wonder what he dreams about.  Because I spend too much time at work, getting to see this small lion sleep is a rare treat.  But I know he needs the beauty rest.  He has busy days too, making sure the birds that come to our windowsill to eat stay out of trouble.  We live in an apartment now, so he no longer has to keep the proseletysers and political canvassers at bay, but keeping the birds and occasional squirrel in line have replaced that task.  And at night he has to chase the ghosts.  That's when I see the true Wild in him.

We almost thought we had lost him earlier this year, his body becoming thin and frail, his preference suddenly to just hide from the world.  But with the help of a very good veterinarian, we were able to learn of an overactive thyroid that was making him ill.  Something that can be treated with medicine.  A radiation therapy may be in the future for him, which would cure him forever, but it would require boarding him at the vet's office for five days, so I'm on the fence about that.  So for now I go into the city every month to pick up his medicine, and I stop in the zoo whilst down that way to say hi to his cousins, the big lions.