Kitty 1

I am participating in NANOWRIMO this year. I will attempt to post my daily ramblings in the hopes that eventually it will become a book which will entertain you as well as myself…

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Kitty Part 1

By Plot Roach

The scrabble of footsteps on blacktop brought her to alertness. Rubber soled shoes scraped against broken glass and kicked aside other urban debris as the human made her way to the dumpster in the alley. The heat had already risen to unbearable levels this morning and the dog was loathe to leave her haven, even for the food she knew that she would find. A low growl in her stomach reminded her that food was a necessity and that the coolness of her retreat could be regained after she stuffed her belly. She slowly found her feet, stretching like a cat in the small confines of her hideaway. She shuffled through the maze of support beams and exited through the hole that had been broken in the stucco façade.

“Here kitty, kitty.” the human called, tossing out handfuls of dried kibble onto the weed infused ground. Cats by the dozens appeared like phantoms through the cracks in the wall and the thick tangles of greenery. The dog rushed in among them and sucked up bits of dried food whenever she could find them. The cats gave her a with berth, but sneered and snarled at her if she got too close to their chosen spots. The dog hung back, the pang of her hunger satiated as the cats gorged upon the food pellets, for she knew what was to come next.

A few minutes later, the sound of a can being opened caught her ears and her mouth watered with the thought of the food that would now be spilled onto the pavement. “Come kitty, kitties. Good kitties.” the human said, smacking a spoon against the metal side of an emptied tin to get the attention of the animals. Unable to hold herself back any longer, the dog rushed forward and nearly knocked the human over in her quest for food.

 FOOD. She thought. Bolting down the wet globs of meat even as her mouth flooded with saliva. FOOD FOOD FOOD!

 “Well so much for a ‘thank you‘!” the old woman said as she bent down to pat the dog on her back. The dog stifled a snarl, but just barely. She found the old woman tolerable if she brought food and moved slowly. Still, the old woman’s touch was not without its comfort.

But the dog pulled away from the woman when she devoured the last bits of food and licked away whatever gravy could be reclaimed from the hard packed earth beneath her paws. She left the old woman talking to the cats and returned to her dark haven.

In the past she found that humans had been more trouble than their worth. In the silence of her home beneath the apartment complex, her mind wandered back to various points in her life. The warmth and smell of her siblings and milk, the day that their mother left them and the humans who had come to claim them.

It seemed so long ago that she was a young pup, playfully tumbling with her brothers and sisters on an open lot not unlike the alley where the old woman fed her. The dog slipped into a light sleep and traveled back to that place, that time when she lost those dearest to her.

The sun was bright overhead and she remembered being thirsty and hungry, always hungry.