I suppose I was a neurotic pup, but then you would be too, if you'd been through my experience. As indeed, you might.
I'm not sure just how long I stayed with the giant and his companion - I suppose it was three or four months at least. It was a doggy life for me, my human senses still dormant but ready to erupt at the slightest nudge. I'm thankful I was allowed to adapt to my new shell before the shattering knowledge burst through. The next stage wasn't far off though, and of course I was quite unprepared for it.
The reason for getting rid of me, I imagine, was because I was a pest. I know the giant liked me, even loved me in a way, for I can still remember his affection, feel his goodness, till this day. Those first terror-filled nights when I howled in the darkness for my brothers and sisters - my mother - he took me up to his sleeping-place. I slept on the floor beside him, much to the annoyance of his companion, and much to her even greater annoyance when she discovered the damp patches and the soft, gooey mounds scattered around the spongy floor the following morning. I think that put me on the wrong side of her from the start. The relationship between us never really developed into anything more than wariness of each other. In due fairness to her, I think the best I can say is she treated me like a dog.
Words were only sounds to me then, but I could feel the emotion in them. I sensed, without understanding that I was a substitute for something else, and it's easy enough now to realise just what.
They were, as far as I can remember, a mature couple, and they were alone. I could tell, from the noises the couple often made at each other, that the giant was full of shame and his mate full of scorn. I was confused enough as a pup and the atmosphere between them did nothing to help my emotional stability.
Anyhow, as a substitute, I was no great success.
I don't know whether it was just one particular incident or an accumulation of disasters that led to my dismissal. All I know is that one day I found myself back among canine companions. My second home
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was a dogs' home.
And it was there that the breakthrough came.
Four
I'd been there for about a week, quite happy with my new friends, although a few were a bit rough. I was reasonably well fed (you had to fight for a fair share, though - a case of dog-eat-dog really), and quite well looked after. The big two-legged animals used to file past most days, calling down to us, making silly clucking noises, then pointing out one of us in particular. An older dog told me these creatures were called people, and it was they who governed everything; they ruled the world. When I asked what the world was, he turned away in impatient disgust and ran over to the people, sticking his nose through the wire grille in a show of homage. I soon learnt he was an old hand at the game of selection, for this wasn't his first visit to the dogs' home. I also learnt it wasn't a good thing not to be selected - eventually you would be taken away by a white-skin, and there was no mistaking the smell of death hanging over you.
The more experienced dogs told me about people: how they shed their skins at will, since it was only dead skin like the thing round my neck; how there were males and females, like us, and that they called their puppies children. If they kept repeating a sound to you, sometimes kindly, sometimes harshly, then that was probably your name. They would feed you and look after you if you were obedient. They had learned to walk on two legs a long, long time ago, and had felt superior ever since. They were a little stupid, but could be very kind.
They had the power to destroy all animals, even those bigger than themselves.
And it was that power, and only that, that made them the masters.
I discovered I was what was called a crossbreed - in other words, a mongrel. There's no class system among dogs, of course, but different breeds do have different characteristics. For instance, a Labrador retriever is gentle and intelligent, whereas a greyhound is generally skittish and somewhat neurotic; you can hardly say a word to the latter without getting a snappish reply. It's funny how the dogs knew what they were: a terrier knew it was a terrier, a spaniel it was a spaniel. However, a Scottish terrier couldn't tell it was different from an Airedale; nor would a cocker spaniel know it was different from a clumber.
These differences weren't important enough to be noticed.
Another point I soon discovered was that generally the bigger the dog, the more placid he or she was. It was the little squirts who caused the most trouble. And at that time, I was a little squirt.
I'd howl for my once-a-day meal; I'd whine against the blackness of night, I'd torment the sillier dogs, I'd wrestle the friskier ones. I'd snap and snarl at anyone who displeased me and I'd get very angry and chase the long thing that curled from my rump (I never caught it and it was quite a while before I accepted I never would). Even the fleas irritated me, and if I saw one hopping about on a companion's
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back I'd lunge for it, nipping the other dog's flesh. This would usually create a fine din and pretty soon a white-skin would throw a cold-making liquid over our struggling bodies.
I was soon earmarked as a troublemaker, often finding myself separated from the rest in a cage of my own. This made me even more morose and irritable and pretty soon I felt very unloved. The people just didn't realise: I had problems!
The problems were of course buried deep inside me where a strange conflict was going on. I knew I was a dog; yet instincts, senses - call it intuition - told me I wasn't. The conflict erupted to the surface on a cold, dream-filled night.
I had been asleep on the fringe of a group of furry bodies that had closed their ranks on me - I wasn't very popular with the other canines by that time - and my head was full of strange images. I was tall, precariously balanced on two legs, my face level with those of the people; a female people was walking towards me, kindness radiating from her, nice sounds coming from her jaws. I seemed to know her, and I wagged my tail, the motion almost unbalancing me. She made a soft sound that was familiar to me and her jaws formed a curious round shape. Her head was only inches away from mine and coming closer, making contact. My tongue snaked out and licked her nose.
She pulled back, a tiny sound escaping from her. I could tell she was surprised by her sudden body smell. She became even more surprised when I started panting and wagging my tail even harder. She backed away and I followed unsteadily on my two back legs.
She began to run and now I had to drop on all fours to follow. Colours, sounds and scents cascaded into my head, and all was chaos, all was confusion. Other faces appeared before me. One was tiny, beautiful, a little female people - a child. She rubbed her head against mine, then climbed up on my back, kicking her legs against my flanks. We frolicked on the green stuff and I felt I would burst with joy. Then darkness shadowed the sky. Another face. Anger glowing from it. I disappeared and I was in a cage. In the market-place. Then I was in among other warm bodies which froze, went icy cold when the dogs opened their eyes and saw me.
Then all was total blackness.
But I was safe. I was warm. A loud, comforting thumping noise sounded close to me, almost inside me.
Other, less strong sounds ticked away furiously all around. Everything, everywhere, was soft; I was encased in life-giving, life-preserving fluid. I was in my mother's womb and I was content.
Then the driving force behind me - the sudden brutal jerks of contraction. I was being forced from my safe nest, thrust down a long black tunnel into the harsh cold of the outside. I resisted. I wanted to stay.
I'd known that outside before. I didn't like it. Please, please let me stay! Don't send me out. I don't want life. Death is more pleasant.
But the forces were so much stronger than me. Death had been stronger, and now life was too.
My head was pushed through first, and for a moment my small body lingered. There were others in the queue though, and they forced me through, eager in their ignorance. I shivered and my eyes refused to open: reality would find me in its own time. I felt the other glistening wet bodies around me, then a sandpaper-rough tongue cleansed the filth from me and I lay there, humble and vulnerable.
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Reborn.
I screamed and the scream woke me.
My head felt as if it would explode with the new knowledge. I wasn't a dog; I was a man. I had existed before as a man and somehow I had become trapped inside an animal's body. A dog's body. How? And why? Mercifully the answers evaded me; if they hadn't, if they had come roaring through at that point, I think I should have become insane.
My scream had woken the other dogs and now the pen was a bedlam of excited barking. They snapped and snarled at me, but I just stood there shivering, too dazed to move. I knew myself as a man, I could see myself. I could see my wife. I could see my daughter. Images rebounded around the walls of my mind, merging, splitting, rejoining, bedevilling me into a state of complete disorientation.
Suddenly the place was flooded with light. I squeezed my eyes shut to ease the pain and opened them again when I heard men's voices. A door opened and two white-skins stepped through, grumbling and shouting at the disturbed dogs.
'It's that little bugger again,' I heard one of them say. 'He's been nothing but trouble since he got here.'
A hand reached down and grabbed me roughly. My collar was used to drag me from the pen and down a long corridor of similar cages, the dogs in these now yapping furiously, adding to the uproar. I was shoved into a dark box, a kennel separated from the others to house nuisances. As the door was locked behind me I heard one of the men say, 'I think he'll have to be put down tomorrow. Nobody's going to want a mongrel like that anyway, and he's only upsetting the others.'
I didn't hear the murmured reply, for the words had struck new terror in me. I was still confused by the awful revelation, but the brutal statement had cut right through the haze. Standing there, rigid in the dark with my mind in a fever, I began to weep. What had happened to me? And why was my new life to be so short? I slumped to the floor in despair.
Soon, other instincts began to take over; my jumbled self-pitying thoughts began to take on an order. I had been a man, there was no doubt about that. My mind was that of a man's. I could understand the words the two men had spoken, not just their general meaning, but the actual words themselves. Could I speak? I tried, but only a pathetic mewing noise came from my throat. I called out to the men, but the sound was just a dog's howl. I tried to think of my previous life, but when I concentrated, the mental pictures slid away. How had I become a dog? Had they taken my brain from my human body and transplanted it into the head of a dog? Had some madman conducted a gruesome experiment and preserved a living brain from a dying body? No, that couldn't be, for I had remembered being born in my dream, born in a litter, my mother-dog washing the slime from my body with her tongue. But had that merely been an illusion? Was I really the result of a sick operation? Yet if that had been the case, surely I would be under constant surveillance in a well-equipped laboratory somewhere, my whole body wired to machines, not cast into this gloomy wooden dungeon.
There had to be an explanation, whether logical or completely insane, and I would seek out the truth of it. The mystery saved my mind, I think, for it gave me a resolve. If you like, it gave me a destiny.
The first need was for me to calm myself. It's strange now to reflect on how coldly I began to think that night, how I held the frightening - the awesome - realisation in check, but shock can do this sometimes; it can numb sensitive brain cells in a self-protective way, so that you're able to think logically and clinically.
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I wouldn't force my memory to tell me all its secrets just yet - it would have been impossible anyway. I'd give it time, allow the fragments to make a whole, helping the images by searching, searching for my past.
But first I had to escape.
Five
The latch being lifted aroused me from my slumber. It had been a heavy sleep; empty; dreamless. I suppose my fatigued brain had decided to close down for the night, give itself a chance to recuperate from the shocks it had received.
I yawned and stretched my body. Then I became alert. This would be my chance. If they were to destroy me today, I must make my move while they were off-guard. When they came to take me to the death chamber, their own sensitivity to the execution they were about to carry out would make them wary. It's easy for humans to transmit their feelings to animals, you see, for their auras radiate emotions as strong as radio waves. Even insects can tune in to them. Even plants. The animal becomes sensitive to his executioner's impulses and reacts in different ways: some become placid, quiet, while others become jittery, hard to handle. A good vet or animal keeper knows this and endeavours to disguise his feelings in an effort to keep the victim calm; but they're not successful usually and that's when there's trouble. My hope was that this visit was social and not for the more ominous purpose.
A young girl of about eighteen or nineteen wearing the familiar white smock of the handlers looked in.
She just had time to say 'Hello, boy' before I caught the whiff of sadness from her, then I was off like a shot. She didn't even try to grab me as I dashed by; she was either too startled or secretly pleased I was making a bid for freedom.
I skidded, trying to turn aside from the pound opposite and my toenails dug into the hard ground. My whole body was a scrambling mass of motion as I streaked around the half-covered yard, searching for a way out. The girl gave chase but in a half-hearted way as I scurried from corner to corner. I found a door to the outside world, but there was no way to get through it. I was filled with frustration at being a dog; if I'd been a man, it would have been easy to draw the bolt and step outside. (Of course, I wouldn't have been in that position then.)