The Endling   Word spread fast — an auction. So rare, they said — imagine what it took for us to find one! This was true — we’d learned how to play dead,   how to blend in, how to evaporate like morning mist, how to keep ourselves fed on nearly nothing, just scraps from their plates,   the stuff they threw away. We roamed by night, believing that we owned the darkness. Fate would be kind, we thought — we let nothing frighten   us, even as our numbers declined. I never saw the net, just blinding light, the dealer barking, The last of his kind!     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont January 2020