Caspar is my name. it is not often that our cave is shared with humans. i am a golden jackal and live in the desert planes. It is not the most hospitable place. I survive my eating berries and carrion, and there is a little brook in the ravine, which only rarely runs out.

I am watchful and wary and immediately hid in the shadows when he arrived. He seemed purposeful and quiet; well, I suppose he had to be; there was no one there for him to talk to. That is not quite true, as he seemed to recite words from the sacred texts; and he also seemed to spend lots of time listening. I am not sure he knew I was there, although I can be noisy, especially if I am sleeping.

He could do what most of his kind could, make warmth each night, which meant that I, crept a little closer, although we still hid in the shadows, undetected or so I thought. He went for a walk early in the morning, stretching himself and talking I imagined to the creator of the universe. This can be a still place. Sometimes I followed him, watching, I was always careful to keep out of sight. You can never fully trust a human. It was strange as I never saw him eat, although he would go down to the ravine and drink. With a tool he had fashioned with his hands, he moved some of the rocks making some of the water flow nearer to what I was beginning to call our home. The man was still my guest. Sometimes berries were left just in the shadows of the cave. I wolfed them down. It was only later it occurred to me that my guest had left them for me.

The moon had gone a full cycle, and he was still there. He kept the same habit of walking in the morning, resting in the afternoon, going out in the evening and lighting a fire. Every day there seemed to be some food left in the shadows. He still seemed purposeful, perhaps even driven. Sometimes there seemed to be an extra something about him, as if he was resisting something. He must have been getting weaker. My stomach yells if I don’t get to eat every other day. But he seemed to grow stronger. I might have thought about that longer if I had not begun to enjoy the company. About half way though the second cycle of the moon, he changed a little. He seemed to be more certain, as if he had come asking questions and had found some answers.

On what turned out to be his last time at home, he lit a fire, and for no reason at all, I went and lay near it. ‘There you are’, he said, and he ruffled my fur. I did nothing. I was not going to let on that it was kind of nice. The following morning, he got up, and after finding some berries which he left at the entrance of the cave; he left. I followed for a little while, until he met up with others of his own kind. ‘Jesus, we have been looking for you everywhere’. His reply was simple, ‘I had to be about my father’s business’. I trotted back to my cave. I often wondered about the man who made me come out of the shadows, and sometimes longed to sit with him by the warmth of the fire.