They were everywhere, so close, I could feel them watching me hungrily with their teeth bared, ready to tear me to pieces. One wrong step and I would end up being their dinner for the night.
As I carefully treaded my way through the pack, I began cursing myself. What had seemed like a brilliant idea some time ago now seemed like mere fallacies of a foolish mind.
Meeting the alpha of the canine pack, who had made, us, humans outcasts in our own backyard, and persuading him to leave us in peace had seemed like a real brainwave accompanied by delusions of being crowned the human messiah. Who was I kidding!
Yet here I was. With shaking legs and my heart racing like it was competing in a crazy motorcycle race, I made my way towards the alpha. He stood tall and proud on what must have once been an SMC dustbin. Swallowing all my pride, I bowed before the beast and requested permission to speak. Hey, hold your horses before going all judgmental on me.You don’t act all high and mighty when you are in your enemys lair, especially if you want to come out alive.
Speak! he commanded. His voice alone was enough to send my heart rate up a few notches. Mustering up all the courage I had, I began trying to plead the human cause in a quivering voice, using allweapons at my disposal. I began by trying to instill fear,telling them how we, the supreme creation,were eventually going to crush them and win this war. This only earned me a lot of barks that sounded like booing somehow. Maybe because I knew how hollow this threat sounded. Next,I tried appealing to their sense of greed. Now this particular tool had never failed me before nor did I expect it to now. After all, how different could dogs be! So sounding like a true politician, I recounted the pre-election farce,which I had become quite familiar with. Promising these dogs of sending them to a great place with abundant food and all other luxuries any dog would even need only earned me sniggers. You think dogs and humans are the same? someone in the crowd shouted. Now at this point,I should have realized that winning was not an option but I still had one more argument left and I decided I might as well use that too.So I began appealing to their sense of pity, stating how our little kids were being bitten every day and how we had become prisoners in our own homes due to the fear of being bitten. This one earned me just a bark. So I thought maybe I had finally won them over. But my bubble of victory only survived until the alpha began to speak. You have brought this upon yourselves. It all started when your race,which I think is such a pitiable one, started going haywire. You began drafting all sorts of laws protecting almost every kind of creature except your own selves. You drafted a constitution that punishes anyone who dares to harm us but when you harm and kill each other, your constitution only has loop holes. You elect murderers and thieves in the name of democracy and then expect to be protected and given justice.You hold conferences for protecting endangered animals and plants but forget that your kind is the most endangered one. We bite because no law of yours restricts us. You say we hurt your children. What about the countless times your people abandon their newborns for us to devour? You are concerned about our population explosion and yet leave heaps of garbage around to serve as our breeding grounds. You talk about honor yet expertly weave quagmires of deception and corruption. You wage wars on each other and destroy nations under banners of peace yet call us beasts. Despite bitingso many of you, all you cando is watch helplessly.You talk about unity yetwhen you try to pass a bill against us in the assembly,your own kind are the first to oppose you. We, on the other hand, always stand by our brethren because we know our survival depends on us being united.
But we have a neutering program, I argued in a weak voice. Ha-ha he guffawed. Neutering program for dogs…in a country where more than half the population lacks basic medical care? You really think that your selfish kind will bother to get any of us neutered just to contribute to the greater good when you all are always trying to rip each other’s throats? You must be delusional. Of course you could draft new measures and policies against us but thanks to your law makers, the money required to finance them will only end up lining the pockets of your greedy officers. You deceive, kill and cheat each other yet preach about morality!Your race is concerned about everything except your own kind. You are so blinded by your greed that you yourselves are writing tales of your destruction. We don’t need to do anything,you are clearly doing all the work for us.
You humans, powerful yet so powerless! he said,shaking his head. Go home child. Save yourself from each other first because you alone are your worst enemies! Much as I wanted to deny it, there were enough truths to remind me how right he really was.
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