Golden Cage
Tears dripped down as the raindrops raced each other on the car window disappearing into the window sill, mimicking the formation of puddles outside. A suffocated heart choked back beats that went slower than the pitter patter of the rain. Thunderous grumbles echoed not just overhead but within the small pit, meagre substances were dumped into for sustaining life. Others would call it foolish to weep over the current rescue but the petite soul that shrunk in the seat beside the window begged to differ. To give up a life of freedom and starvation for a trapped healthier life didn’t seem like a good deal. Why would anyone want to sit healthy and temporarily happy? Surrounded by golden bars rather than experience the joy of the wind ruffling against their face as they run from street to street.
The adrenaline pumped around her system as she stretched the frown further downwards to accentuate her disagreement to the situation. What some would call a rescue could only be labelled as imprisonment in her head. True, life was hard outside the automobile on the stone pavement and smooth streets. Finding food to quench the hunger was another quest in itself, but despite that the life of adventure, exhilaration and hard work it provided the continuous flow of adrenaline within her veins which made up for the difficulties in her life. True, how the passers-by and pedestrians on the street gave pitiful glances at her thin and frail frame but that didn’t matter to her. She shook her head at it and smiled at the small, sufficient slice of bread the neighbourhood baker provided.
Being distanced from her regular street allies who had grown to be so much more than that. Calling them mere friends was an injustice to all the memories they shared together since the time she was found as a small little bundle wrapped up in a ragged blanket beside a dumpster. She didn’t wail, thinking about the beginning of her life and how her days were spent trying to hunt for food and survive. She sadly smiled as she took a trip down memory lane and remembered all those hours she spent among her own kind. Amidst ones with similar backgrounds as hers, surrounded by individuals who related to her, supported her and offered relief in tough times and times she grieved upon.
Years of looking after her own back and others’ backs to prevent the onslaughts of crime that lurked dangerously around every corner she turned. She had hardened her skin to steel and her heart to a coconut. Emotions, as tender as the whites inside a coconut, rarely surfaced onto her usual steely gaze to prevent falling into the traps set up for her. She had trained herself to be predator rather than prey, not allowing even the simplest of emotions to cloud her eyes unless it was within the sanctuary of those she put her trust in. Trust. A word that had taken her immense time and effort to thrust onto others. She trusted those who regularly hunted with her, those who had her back, those who made her smile and spent every waking hour beside her up to the last hour when they ran together to escape their pursuers.
She could still vividly remember the tear-stained cheeks of her sisters and brothers who had been pushed out of harm’s way by her as the individuals captured her giving them enough time to flee from the site. She had watched them, stunned as a stone, as they sent sorrowful glances watching the car she was in whip out of their line of sight as they wailed on every second after. They missed her beyond anything, she just knew it. Her tail twitched with every sniff she let out, her eyes as puffy as the bushy tail she had. Tears stung her red bloodshot eyes as she wept an ocean she just couldn’t swim across. She longed to build a bridge and walk over the ocean of the sorrowful period of her life back to her days below the sun beside her..family. She longed to taste the same freedom she had once feasted upon truly with all her heart. She hated the taste of imprisonment as she watched the car screech to a halt and glanced at the sign above her.
“Greens rescue shelter” – her supposed home from now on until the day she takes matters into her own paws.
Written by Rutvi Mehta