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.
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.
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.)
I turned to growl at the girl as she approached, soft, coaxing words coming from her lips. My hair bristled and I went down on my front legs, my haunches quivering with gathering strength. The girl hesitated and her sudden doubt and wear wafted over me in waves.
We faced each other, and she felt sorry for me and I felt sorry for her. Neither of us wanted to frighten the other.
A door opened in the building at the far end of the yard and a man appeared, an angry look on his face.
‘What’s all the fuss, Judith? I thought I told you to bring the dog from Kennel Nine.’ His expression changed to one of exasperation when he saw me crouching there. He strode forward, muttering oaths under his breath. I saw my chance — he’d left the door open behind him.
I hurtled past the girl, and the man, now half-way down the yard, spread his arms and legs as though I would jump into them. I passed underneath him and he vainly scissored his legs together, howling as his ankles cracked together. I left him hopping and flew through the open doorway, finding myself in a long, gloomy corridor, doors on either side. At the end was the door to the street, huge and formidable. Shouting from behind made me scurry down the corridor’s length, desperate for a way out.
One of the doors on my left was slightly ajar, and without pausing I burst through. A woman on her knees just in the process of plugging in an electric kettle in the corner of the room stared across at me, too surprised to move. She began to rise to one knee and in panic I ran beneath a desk. My nose picked up the scent of fresh air mingled with dog fumes and, looking up, I saw an open window. A hand was reaching under the desk for me now and I could hear the woman’s voice calling to me in friendly tones. I sprang forward, up on to the sill, then through the window.
Terrific. I was back in the yard.
The girl Judith saw me and called out to the man who had by now entered the building, but the yapping of the other dogs succeeded in drowning her cry. I kept running, back through the door and up behind the man chasing me.
He shouted in confusion as I scurried round him, and gave chase immediately. I was sure they’d have the sense to close one of the outlets if I went through my door-window-door routine again, so I ignored the open office.
