We come from dogs, my brother and me. We were roly-poly puppies with a whole bunch of others. We would jump on each other in piles, nipping each other’s ears, chasing each other’s tails.
But then all the other puppies grew longer tails and ours got shorter. The other puppies learned to bark and we learned to talk. The other puppies walked on four legs but we started to walk on two. Our paws grew into hands. Our snouts became noses.
We spoke.
And when we tried to play with the other puppies, we would yell. Their teeth were too sharp. Their nails were too hard. We couldn’t nip and scratch and growl anymore in our human skin.
All the playing started to hurt.