The Nearest Thing to You

You stand up for ten seconds. When you return, your dog is already folded into the dent you left behind, looking less like a thief than someone who has completed a very small emergency.

The seat is warm. More importantly, it smells densely and recently of you: fabric holding the trace of skin, clothes, and the hours you spent there. Dogs can distinguish a familiar person's scent even when that person is absent, and their reward circuitry responds differently to it.

Perhaps she likes the superior cushion. Perhaps climbing there has also taught her that you return, laugh, and make room. None of that requires a tiny campaign for household rank.

She did not steal a throne. She entered the warm outline of someone who had just disappeared.

For a little while, your empty chair is the nearest place to you.