Chapter Two
Death Row Reject
I don’t know when I woke up, I just know that I did; and when I did, it was here. I had been snatched from hell and carried into a dream; only to be expelled from that. The irony is bigger than that, because now that I’m better I’m waiting for them to kill me. At first I was rejected from home, and now I’m waiting to be rejected from life.
At least three of my legs still work; they’ve taken the other one away. Now when I wee, I fall over and my fur gets wet. The kennel keeps me waiting to hear the song of the Great Bridge; the tune that is humming amidst the howling of those begging to cross its boundary. You see nobody wants to die, sure we all want to end up on The Beach of the Great Beyond; and yet there is never a time when you’d want to be actually sent there. You simply want to scratch and fall asleep; and just wake up there. You certainly don’t want to wake up here, waiting to be sent for.
It’s strange really, you know, how the humans lord their power over our destiny. As a pup I recall that I was beaten if I so much as lifted my leg without permission. Here they take us away, for being too old to foster or too expensive to cure. The power of life and death is down to care or cure and that dominion lies solely in human hands. The power to inflict pain was in the hands, and feet, of my previous owners. If man was once a dog’s best friend, I now see him as little more than the most twisted of torturers. You see, waiting to die is the most protracted of pains; when all that you are guilty of is puncturing the hand that punched you. Yeah, he hit I bit; guilty as charged. Except that the last one hadn’t hit me.
Getting the death sentence for defending myself; makes me question the essence of justice for my kind. Of course this is mankind’s justice, not mine. If the situation was somehow reversed, the human wouldn’t have to die at my paw. If I’d bitten him I’d maybe expect to be bitten back, not to be handed a death sentence.
The oddest thing is that while I’m here I’m cared for much better than before. Ironic isn’t it; that to prepare for the Great Beyond, they want me all healthy and clean? So yes I’m well fed and exercised; and yes I do feel really fit. Fit to die.
The humans mill about doing the same routine; it’s the same day by day. They lord their power over us; little realising that it is their perceptions that are askew. The way I see things: The one who cleans up the mess is the inferior one. At least these humans don’t kick and scream when we foul, like my last owner had. The thought makes my bones itch and the fur on my back stand on end. My previous owners had plied their cruelty in quite a different way to these.
The hours behind those bars faded into days, and those soon faded into weeks; then time simply dragged on. You could almost feel the clock drain away a little more of you with every passing second. It was a time of wicked introspection, punctuated by routine and frightened barks. That was until the cage doors opened; and the humans with the poles came.
Every morning they would walk us on a machine, round and around we would go, it somehow felt like the winding up of the death chamber; the chamber that claimed more of us every day. It was hell in there and sometimes it got so loud that you could not hear the calling; those were the worst of times. That sighing kept you, kind of well, together; you know?
That all changed one morning as I awoke to the sleep addled sight of the cage door. My heart wanted to stop; and I’m sure it did, as the human with the poles placed his key in the lock. Time seemed to move slowly then; and the pole advanced on me along with a certain mortal dread. The fear of death was on me as I knew that my time had come.
I barked and my hackles rose, but the pole soon had me in its infernal hoop; and then I was crammed into a cage that was all cold and metal. There was something horrible and final about it. I fought, although I knew it was pointless. I’d seen the others fight the poles. I had even promised myself that when my moment came, I would go quietly and with my eyes open. But all I could think of in that moment was to fight them every step of the way. So I snarled and yapped and barked and snapped at the bars in that tiny cage. The poles, I’m ashamed to say, made short work of me as I was ushered to the carrier cage. It was the cage that would carry me to the gas chamber.
The corridor dragged by as if on stolen time; and all too soon I could only watch the walls as they passed me by on the way to that room of doom. I covered my eyes with my paws and whimpered; my voice melded into the frightful crying of my friends. That passage was long, too long, yet somehow it could never have been long enough.
A door had opened onto a sudden burst of light and the rumble of humans talking. I was terribly afraid and yet I somehow managed to move my quivering paw; and glare into the bright light that burned right into my eyes; even through them.
Then all too soon it struck me; this was no chamber of the damned; it was a car- park. That bright light was the sun and yet not the one that shines on Beyond Bridge. It shone not on a dark-way, but a bright-way. A bright-way to a whole new world, a world filled with fun and freedom.
Even as the car boot had shut with me in it, my tail had been wagging. Wagging at the irony that even death row had rejected me; and when that happens, a whole new life can begin.
I’ve decided not to bite these humans, or at least I’ll try not to. Sure, I have issues as sharp as my teeth and I’ll always take those with me; but then again who doesn’t?
THE END/ BEGINNING?
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Issues Page 2
