Vale Pepe, Best of Cavys
I didn’t really have pets as a kid. Not the kind who were around long enough that you remember them. My dad kept snakes for a time, and those terrified me. We had guinea pigs when I was three, and a budgie for a short while, but the phase where pets and my life intersected was largely done by the time I turned seven. When my partner and I started living together, she brought her guinea pigs with her. They occupied a corner of the flat and interacted with one another, interrupted quiet writing days at home with demands for food and attention. They were a constant source of distraction and joy. I told myself I wasn’t a pet person, but they suckered me in anyway. There were noses to boop and personalities to learn and a surprising amount of affection for a critter that only weighs a kilogram. We lost Pepe, one of the pigs, last Friday. He’d gone