Before Sunlight
The virtuous watering eyes of the juvenile puppy stared out into the foggy glass that separated him and his new adopter. The decrepit dog pound that he was being raised in along with hundreds of other dogs was a new tourist attraction. Trying out his finest tricks and impotent whimpers, the newborn Dalmatian bounced around the confinements of his constrained glass box until he was met by an elderly visitor.
The senior man had white bedraggled hair and prominent dim gray eyes that seemed to make him not see at all. But even with his perchance of blindness, the old man somehow propped the tiny Dalmatian out of the glass container and blissfully strode with the pup to his synthetic home.
At the disheveled home, the puppy would later regret all his tricks and gimmicks he had performed at the dog pound. He would experience being starved and never being the recipient of tenderness and love. He would be hit and slapped by the end of a bamboo feather duster his master relished so much. The innocent pup would know what pain, agony, and hopelessness all felt like -- unlike the other dogs.
So it would be one day that he knew the true feeling of betrayal, that the Dalmatian would dig under the fence of his master's home to escape months of abuse and neglect. The young pup escaped, lost and disoriented as he wandered the open streets of a populated city.
The miniature escape artist would cry out into the soft skies, giving a howl of melancholy and mourning as he slept on the streets. He cried merely because he yearned for affection and the warmth of a human-being.
As the days passed, the pup would scavenge for food in the dumpsters of the active city, looking for anything he could find, and grasping towards hope and the future. But now the territory dominated by three other full-grown male dogs that had wanted their share of the dumpster, the puppy ran for his life until his vision was blurred with tears.
However, the full-grown dogs diverted their attention and attacked a man in a shiny black suit who happened to walk by. Although the puppy could hide from the turmoil, he knew he wanted an honorable death.
He instinctively charged towards the cluster of male canines and fought for his own life as well as the stranger's. He resisted until his right ear was chewed off and his own blood stained the sidewalk.
Then there was emptiness; the strange soothing voice of another life form. The same man in the suit would carry the tiny dog into a car to the nearest veterinarian where the pup would be treated. The miniature dog cried out in suffering, as the stranger spoke in reassurance.
"Sshhhh, it's okay buddy," the man said lightly into the atmosphere.
And for a second as the puppy opened his eyes and glanced at the warm sunset outside the car window, he knew this was home.