Where's the Catch?

Three days ago, I arrived at a place where I don’t yet know what to feel. Before now, I had never journeyed away from my home and my family, although neither of those things were synonymous with safety and comfort. The exact composition of my clan was frequently modified, feebler members often failing to return home. That’s hard at first, and then you get used to the disappearances.

My homeland is a bleak place. My people are tortured and oppressed. When the sun beats down on the arid earth, we are dragged from our cramped dwellings, out into open spaces. There we are forced to run. We run until our legs bleed. We run to win, pitted against our own kin, the slowest threatened with torture, humiliation, abandonment, starvation. We run until we shake, and fall, parched and depleted, to our knees. Our oppressors look on, entertained.

My heart broke a thousand times in that godforsaken place. It broke each time I had to walk on, abandoning a collapsed brother or sister in the heat, the dust curling around their nostrils, settling in their open mouth, all their hope evaporated. It broke each time I saw a brother or sister hanging from a tree, their legs just touching the ground, not close enough to be able to stand, not far away enough for their body to break under its own weight; the minimal contact with the ground ensured a prolonged, agonising death. My heart broke as, helpless, I watched our oppressors torture the hanging victims, stabbing them with hot cigarette stubs, laughing as with their last ounce of strength they winced when the burning tobacco cut through their stretched skin.

The day came when I was cast out alone into the hostile land. A brother had outrun me. I was considered a waste of space, or worse, a dishonour to my masters. I was free finally from the grip of oppression, but now, I fell into the callous claws of starvation. My bleeding legs, submissive, carried me across endless fields, clumps of dry earth giving way beneath each step. I searched for anything edible, and anything to quench the thirst that scratched my throat like sand. I remember laying down in the dust, letting my own hope evaporate, closing my eyes in the blinding sun. I felt myself floating in the hot breeze. I looked down to see my body curled like a round pile of dirty bones, my face half buried in the dry earth, my nose not even twitching as flies landed and crawled there.

*

I awoke then to a new kind of light, just as bright but unfamiliar. I no longer lay on clumps of dry earth but on a smooth, cold surface. People surrounded me, looking down at me, speaking in a tongue I couldn’t understand. Their tone was gentle, gentler than I’d ever heard before, but still, I was surrounded. Adrenalin pumped through my veins, I tried to get to my feet, but when I struggled, they held my legs down. I lay defenceless as hands travelled over my whole body, sometimes stroking me gently, sometimes pinching, sometimes poking me with sharp instruments. Sometimes they leant over me and put things in my ears, or looked in my mouth, then at each other. I lay squinting in the bright light on the cold surface, shaking in the fear that they would soon start to burn me with cigarette stubs, or drag me outside and hang me by my ankle from a tree till my leg broke, twisted at the joint by my struggle. But the cigarette stubs never came. The people only prodded and poked, stared and talked. They did not appear to be at all entertained by my pain.

That night I was left alone in a small concrete cell. I was weak, the skin hung off my bones, but I had food and water. The terrible scratching feeling was gone from my throat. Through the bars of the door, I saw a brother stare from his cell. We exchanged a few whispered words. He didn’t know any better than I did why we were there or how long we would be held for. Several days passed. We were allowed periods of exercise in the prison yard, and small rations of monotonous food. It was better than starvation, but I hoped and yearned to one day be free again.

One morning, after a short spell in the yard, I was led out of the prison. My brother from the cell opposite me was there, along with some others of our kind. Everyone was terrified. I had a strange feeling that I was at once one of them and an observer. My heart raged as I looked at them, meek, resigned, and afraid. Gentler creatures never walked the earth. Our suffering and humiliation are undeserved, our oppressors’ satisfaction sordid and baffling.

A large van with no windows waited. We were forced into the back of this vehicle, and our endless journey began. Occasionally the van stopped, and we were taken into the fresh air. There we were offered food we were too terrified to eat and the chance to relieve our bladders, most of which had already emptied themselves in the dark terror of the van as it moved into the unknown, adding stench to the heat and obscurity.

Our journey finally ended, I can’t say how long it lasted, I have no way of knowing how many times the sun rose and set as we panicked in the dark. But it did end. We were taken out, one by one, into air colder and damper than anything we had ever known before. People waited in a semi-circle around the van, watching as we stumbled out into the light. We were separated from our brothers and sisters, and each taken away by different people from the semi-circle, bound with rope, unable to escape.

That was three days ago. It was how I got to where I am today. This new place is the strangest I have ever known. Everything is soft here, so soft. There is an inside part and an outside part. The outside part is covered in the softest most luscious green grass I have ever set foot on. The sun shines but doesn’t burn. Inside, large soft squares cover the ground. You don’t ever have to walk on anything hard if you don’t want to, you can just hop from one soft square to the next. Except, that is, in the place where we eat. There, the floor is cold and hard, and the people often push a bunch of wet furry things over it on the end of a stick, usually right after dinner. Oh! The dinners! They’re succulent, fresh, and smell delicious even if you’re right at the end of the outside place. I know when it’s ready because one of the people who seem to live here, a man, stands in the doorway and shouts “dinner!”.

He often has a cigarette in his hand, and I was wondering if that was the catch. I expected him to turn to stab me with the burning stump after I ate, but he hasn’t done that yet. It’s all just softness, lush grass, gentle light, and big platefuls of wonderful food for now. There are trees though, in the outside part. That worries me. There are other outside places too, but they seem to be separated from this one. I can’t find a way through to them. I often hear people laughing, although I can’t see them, and I wonder if my brothers and sisters swing in agony from their trees. I pray that they don’t, and I wonder where the other passengers from the van are now.

The man with the cigarettes frightens me when he laughs, his voice is very loud. I wonder when he will beat me with the stick he pushes around the floor. It puzzles me why he holds a stick and burns cigarettes yet prepares such delicious food and lives in such a soft place. There must be a catch. I shall watch him very closely until I work out what it is. Until then I plan to enjoy this soft place whilst staying as far away as I can from him and from all the other people here, even the smallest ones. I know from experience that even a small person can hurt you very much when they throw a stone at you.

Oh dear.

The man is walking towards me now.

I’m leaping up, ready to make an escape, but he’s stopping, crouching down, extending his hand towards me, making gentle sounds in his strange language. He’s not holding a cigarette or a stick now, maybe it’s safe. I’m tentatively putting my paw in his hand, even that is soft, and warm. My paw has landed in his palm, an unexpected wave of joy is engulfing my chest. I’m unsure what to do, so I’m just leaving my paw there and looking into his face. It’s a kind face, after all. My tail is starting to twitch uncontrollably, I’d forgotten how annoying that can be.

Now I hear laughter again, coming from one of the outside places I can’t access. It can’t be safe here. Caution has cut through the hazy joy, reminding me that there must be a catch.

I’ll take back my paw for now.

A galgo must never drop his guard.

*

Explanatory note: A galgo is a Spanish greyhound. An estimated 50 to 100 000 of these gentle creatures are killed or abandoned in Spain every year. The scenes of torture described here are common occurrences. The lucky ones find themselves taken to refuges and adopted, often in foreign countries. Even for these, the trauma is hard to heal completely.