I Got Broken

I'm Candy, just the kind of dog you'd see around the streets. I'm not beautiful, I'm grimy, even.

But you'd be mistaken if you thought I was a stray, because I had a family. I had been with this couple for as long as their first-born had. That child, I thought, was very lucky to have such a mother who was loving and caring in every respect.

I literally felt the love emanating from her and seeping into the very core of my being. Her essence reeked of her motherly love.

I was very jealous, very jealous indeed.

It was then that I decided that I wanted to be a mother; I want to be that kind of mother to my puppies.

Humans may not understand it but I had an "affair" with another dog from the streets, and as animals, there wasn't any prejudice amongst our habitats. After that, I knew I was conceiving my very first puppy; I was overwhelmed with pride and joy.

For the first time in my canine life I was going to be more than a bitch, in a couple of months' time I was to give birth to a new life to deserve my purest love. Excitement came over me and I lost track of time, so it came as an absolute surprise when I felt this sensation treading on the very thin border between pain and pleasure.

Somehow I knew I was giving birth, perhaps it was motherly instinct, perhaps not. But I just knew.

Then I saw her, my first-born. I officially became a mother. Dogs can't cry so I must have been doing the canine equivalent because happiness blockaded my capacity to process all other emotions. It felt as though I forgot every word I knew except for three, "She is beautiful."

I was ecstatic, for the perfect joy and fulfillment in bearing a puppy, there were no words.

Everything went wrong after my brief trip to cloud nine. Everything went horribly wrong. As much as it might surprise or confuse you all, I went through a bad case of post-partum depression. I became obsessed with my daughter. I got paranoid.

She was precious, no one was to hurt her, she was to be protected, she was to be touched only by me, and I fully intended to give my life repetitively for her.

I forgot my love for my humans; I hid my daughter from them. That was the biggest mistake I made in my life. Underground, that's where I hid her. I made the most idiotic mistake of burying my daughter alive because I didn't want anyone to touch her. Any sane bitch would have known that one would die of suffocation underground if left for too long.

The way it happened, once she was buried, I even sat on top of my daughter's living grave motionless for hours, in belief that I was protecting her.

She died, of course. That's what broke my sanity. That's when I got broken.

I was still reeling from regret and self-hatred when I saw the human woman's shoe. I saw my daughter, the shoe was my daughter, the shoe was the puppy that made me proud. She was to be protected, she was to be touched only by me, and I fully intended to give my life repetitively for her.

More years passed and I was partly healed of my insanity, partly. I had more puppies, but I didn't feel anything for them. When I killed my first-born, my heart shut off. I no longer felt anything. No love, no hatred, no pain, no pleasure. My puppies got hurt or were taken away, others died of disease but I couldn't seem to care.

The human man saw my instability as uselesness. He saw me as nothing more than a bitch that got herself pregnant on a regular basis then bore puppies then left them for dead. He decided I'd have more worth as a drunkard's finger food. I already accepted my fate, I was to die.

He was right, after all. I deserved this.

My day of judgment came. I saw the table, the boiling water, the basin, and there, hanging on a nail on the wall, glinting proudly as though it had ended many lives before and did not regret doing so, was the blade that would cut right through me in a few minutes.

I felt no fear.

The humans bounded me with ropes. That was unnecessary, I thought. I had no plans of struggling anyway. I deserved not just to die, but to be killed. I was then tied to the table.

Given that I've already accepted my impending death, I felt an unnatural calm enveloping me. It felt like I needed to know why, but I can't quite figure it out.

An unusually bright ray tore through my periphery. I moved my eyes to see what it was. Ironically, I saw the sun's rays of hope reflected on the blade about to make its way through my throat.

Everything stopped.

My whole life flashed before my eyes.

I remembered my first daughter, my first puppy, in my memory I saw all the other puppies I brought to the world and how I numbly watched them disappear.

One by pitiful one.

The explanation of calmness came to me. It was like my heart started working again. I felt everything. I felt the love that my children deserved, the hatred for all my mistakes, I recalled the pain of every instance of labor, the fear of losing my puppies, and the pleasure of being a mother. For the first time in years I let out a long, agonizing, lamenting whine. And it was my last.

I knew it was too late to think of the value of my life, but I silently asked for forgiveness.

Blade kissed skin and I was dead.

Death, to me, became the second most important event of my life, second to my first labor, that is; for once again, I shall be a proper mother to my children...

In the next life...