101 Reasons Why

What I Could Have Become

I can see light coming in from outside, and Finn’s silhouette.  I can’t help the grin slowly creeping across my face.  As the warden opens the door, I scream at the top of my lungs, “Finn!” I run up to him to give him a hug, and he envelops me in his long, thin arms.  He looks down at me from nearly a foot.

“There’s a surprise waiting for you in the van,” he says enthusiastically.

       What could it be?  I wonder. The ground cracks under our shoes, and I continue to ponder it, but I fail to come up with anything reasonable. Finn unlocks the car door, and I see a small, snow white tail wagging in the backseat. My jaw drops. Speckles! I think. Of course, I know it’s not Speckles, but the puppy looks exactly like her. I reach into the back of the car and pick the tiny dog up.

“Where did you find her?” I cry.  I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes.  

“Shelter,” Finn replies.  “I asked if they had any Dalmatians, and they told me they only had a dud.  They said she was missing all her spots.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, cradling the small, sleeping dog in my arms.  “I love her.”

We hop into the van and drive away.  I sit in the back along with my new puppy.

“What will you call her?” he questions.

“Polar.” I say, and as the words leave my mouth I know it’s a perfect fit.  We drive the rest of the way home in total silence, besides Polar’s occasional whimpering and panting.

When we finally pull up to my house, I lift Polar off the seat and carry her up my steps. I see today’s newspaper left on my step ever so carefully where I read the headline that seems to jump off the page:

“Dogs Drugged to Produce More Puppies and Earn More Cash!”

It turns out darling Anita wasn’t as sweet as she seemed. Her flaws finally being exposed to society.  The astonishing truth seemed to stab me through the heart though. She hurt those dogs as bad as I was going to. But, she never turned back. We almost became the same person. I almost turned into the person I loathed so much in life. But I guess all I can say is that those puppies are the 101 reasons why I’m not the wickedest of them all. But, without them I wouldn’t have gone through a journey of self discovery.