A Sad Tale

I was a dumpster baby, literally. I was born in a dumpster in a dark back alley in the worst neighbourhood of my town. My mother was homeless and penniless, and the only reason she had me was because she was brutally violated by this gang that controlled the territory around that alley. They took their turn on her and the end result was twins, but my brother was stillborn. My early life also hung in the balance, as my mother’s breast milk was feeble and sparse and barely gave me any sustenance. We got by on scraps and leftovers from the restaurant next door. The cook was sometimes kind enough to hand us some barely expired food. The lack of proper nutrition left me short and scrawny, but at least I survived.

Not to say that my upbringing was easy at all. The pack of hungry stray dogs that roamed the streets was the worst of all and terrified the hell out of me. I would run as fast as I could while they nipped at my heels and only jumping onto a fire escape ladder would save me from their gnashing teeth. I would sit there for what seemed like forever as they barked and growled at me until they got bored or hungry enough to search for easier prey.

I would spend most of my time just sitting at the edge of the alley watching the people walk by, going about whatever business they had to go to, talking into their devices and looking important. I was mostly ignored, just another stain on the sidewalk, except from the occasional passerby that paused for something and noticed me sitting there. I would see the sympathetic look in their eyes as they scanned my haggard dirty form, feeling sorry for my existence. Then just as easily as it arrived, they would shake it off as they remembered whatever important thing they had to do and walked away.

When my mother got sick I was still very young and didn’t know what to do to help her. I just lay by her and rested my head on her wheezing chest until the wheezing got slower and slower. When it finally stopped I was too afraid to move. Eventually the cook came out and saw me, and he was also very sad for me.

Later that day a man and a woman in suits came and talked to the cook, and then they took me away from my mother. I screamed and scratched and bit them, but they wrapped me in a blanket and held onto me tightly and took me away to a new home where there were many others like me. I was very confused, the alley was the only home I knew and I didn’t trust anyone, so I stayed far from the others. But at least they washed me and fed me and I slept in a warm clean bed for the first time in my life.

Sometime later a man and woman came by and visited each of us in that home. They picked me and took me to their house, where they took very good care of me to this day. They even gave me a name, which I never had. They called me ‘Ginger’, on account of my fur colour.

The moral of this story is: never trust what you read, but always trust what you feel.