Illustration by Ana Hinojosa.

Today I watched my two cats sit transfixed in front of the window to the backyard. Nothing was going on out there. There were no other animals, no people around, but you would have thought their favorite Netflix show was back on after a year. I found myself wondering what they saw and what they thought about the Great Outside, a place they haven’t been since they were rescued from the streets as kittens.

I actually think about this a lot: Do my cats have memories? How do they interpret a normal day or an abnormal one? What do they dream about? Maybe you have wondered this too—about your dog or cat, a seagull at the beach, the squirrel running past your house, or an otter out in the wild.

Going way outside ourselves can be a fun creative leap, so today I want you to pick an animal and explore how they see the world. Think about their dreams, their memories, how they communicate, what their day is like, and how they might see things differently than we do. As always, explore this in whatever artistic form you like. Send those experiences—along with your first name, last initial, age, and location—to [email protected] with the subject line “Creative Prompt” by Monday, February 6 at 6 PM ET.

Last week, we asked you to view the present as a person from the past. Here’s how you made sense of today’s world…