Tabby Doe

He used to hang around the neighborhood. Sometimes, he played with his friends and siblings in the alley. Sometimes, he just sat on the wall and watched the rats run past. He wasn't big enough to chase them yet, but he loved to watch them. I always left a bowl of food out for him, in hopes that he'd stick around until he was older, when he could become my friend and help me hate the rats. I guess my food and my hopes didn't help him much.

His body was stretched out next to a tree by the school. He looked as if he was sleeping. He wasn't. Nothing obvious had happened to him. His fur wasn't bloody, and there were no wounds that I could see. He hadn't been hit by a car or attacked by dogs. He was simply lying quietly, next to the brick planter where the flowers had wilted long ago. He looked as if he was sleeping. He wasn't.

The little kids up the street would see him as they walked to class in the morning. Kids in this neighborhood are tough, but hopefully they're not that tough. Hopefully, the kids around here are the kind that would cry when they saw his little furry body. Hopefully, the kids around here are the kind who would have nightmares about the way his mouth was frozen open in an eternal, silent howl. Hopefully, the kids around here aren't the kind who don't hope.

I locked the door behind me, and walked across the alley. Three thugs walked a block away. One of them turned and looked at me. For a moment, our gazes locked beneath the buzzing orange light that casts shadows over the homeless men who dig through the garbage cans. He looked at me for a second too long, then he nodded and looked away.

I walked up to his body, reached down, and grabbed his furry grey tail. His tiny white teeth glistened in the glow of the streetlight, ready to tear into the invisible death that tore into him. His corpse was supple and relaxed. I paused, and he swung like a pendulum from my hand, each arc of his lifeless body marking another lost moment. I looked at him, and he looked back with empty eyes. I lifted him and let go of his tail, and he flopped into the cheap, black trash sack.

His Glad body bag sat behind the school for a few days, another piece of trash amidst the rotting spaghetti and crumpled copy paper. Then the garbage men took him away. His brother started coming by the house every night for a bowl of food, and now his sister comes by too. His brother is fat now, and he rubs against my legs as I walk through the yard. His sister is emaciated. She calls out to me pitifully, then lashes out when I reach toward her. My fingers are covered with bloody clawmarks, but I've touched her enough to feel the welts and wounds that hide beneath her fur.

I will capture them soon. I will capture them, and take them away from this place where their brother died. And when they're gone, it will just be me and the dogs and the rats and the homeless men digging through the garbage in search of a bowl of food.