I’ve spent so many days here looking for my mother. Every time they brought me outside after I arrived in this place, I looked.
But all I saw were humans, staring at me with excited expressions on their faces. Some of them I moved toward because I thought they might be able to comfort me, or because I was curious about them. I soon learned that those who brought me out to these visitors controlled this aspect of my life too. If they didn’t want me to interact with someone, I was pulled back by the leash and collar they put around my waist. Whatever feeling I tried to express–frustration, unhappiness, loneliness–was mostly ignored.
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Sometimes I sensed the people who came to look at me were nervous. I understood why, because I could feel my enormous strength even then, when I was small. As my strength grew, I found myself alone more and more. For a long time, I saw no one else like me. Now there are others. I see them sometimes. We express our despair by screaming and banging on the walls. Shaking the barriers that keep us here. Rocking back and forth to console ourselves. But nothing changes.
There was one, they called him Tommy. When he got here, I thought I saw in him the same pain I felt. The pain of being in a cage, alone, and not understanding why. One day, he was gone. I don’t know where he went. Maybe he found his mother, and I’ll find mine. |
