Her Name Was Laika
by Abigail Williams
The hand that touched my nose smelt of cat and biscuits and a little of the ducks who had surrendered their feathers to its glove. It touched my nose softly. I was in the park, under the bench on a bed of crinkly leaves and I hadn’t expected, hadn’t asked for a hand, but there it was, gentle, and I liked it. Just as fast as it appeared, it went away again. I tipped my head to one side, pricked my ears.
When the hand came back, the glove was gone. The fingers were cupped around something pink and moist, and the smell. Oh, the smell. The smell of life. Of happiness. The smell of meat. I knew not to take it. Hands hit, feet chase—these are things I have learned, but the smell was too good. I sniffed closer, waited for the strike across my nose. Closer. I felt my skin stretching over my ribs as I strained forwards. Closer.
I took it.
It was too long since I had eaten grit-free meat. Not something nosed from the gutter, not something pre-chewed and spat out, not a chunk of grey licked from a puddle of man-sick or a dead stinking thing but fresh, clean meat. I took it and swallowed and when the hand came back with another piece I took that too and I was happy and stupid and didn’t notice the rope around my neck until it yanked me away from my bench and my crinkle-leaf bed.
Even then, lolloping along in my rope noose, I still hoped for another piece of meat. Still believed the hand was kind.
Cage.
Sleep.
Cage.
Sleep.
We were indoors so long I forgot the colour of the sky. We were all female, all street dogs. At first, we had food and I wondered if blue sky might be a fair trade for a full belly, but then the meat fell out of our meals. They gave us jelly, only jelly, and it smelt of chemicals: not cow, not deer, not even rat. It was not food I liked to eat.
They moved us to smaller cages.
They put us into giant machines and swung us—so far and so fast we didn’t know which end was head, which was tail. They measured our heartbeats. Our weight. Our temperature. The swinging machine made us sick, but the cages were small and we couldn’t groom ourselves. I smelled my neighbours. I smelled myself.
They moved us to smaller cages.
The dog next to me whimpered but I was brave. Hands are kind to brave dogs; they don’t like whiners so, even though my cage was too small for me to turn around, I sat with my ears forward and my chin up. And I am glad I did, because they gave me a name. They called me Laika and I knew that soon kind hands would come back with pink moist meat. They weren’t monsters, these people. They called me Laika. They said I was special.
My last cage was the smallest of all, more cramped than the tightest kennel. No space to stand or turn or move my back. I could not relieve myself. They kissed my nose and shut my door and I watched them through the round window criss-crossing the room, white coats and clipboards hurrying here and there. They were taking themselves for a walk. I thought, they have forgotten to take their Laika. I knew there must have been noise with all that moving about but my door was sealed and I couldn’t hear anything and that scared me, to be alone in a silent egg. Still, I was good. I was quiet, until I started to worry they had forgotten me. People like good dogs, but I barked then, because even kind people forget. My egg was sealed. They couldn’t hear.
It grew cold.
Laika, I said to myself. They gave you a name. A name is a gift. They kissed your nose, Laika. But the rumbling started, outside, inside, the floor, my fur—everything was roar. I couldn’t soothe myself. It was worse than the swinging machine, worse than jelly meat, worse than cramp-cage. I barked. I barked but I couldn’t hear myself. My noise drowned in a sea of roar. My heart beat faster than a horse’s hooves, faster than butterfly wings, I was wires and sticky pads, and I barked and I barked.
At first the heat was welcome. But it is too hot now. It is too hot. Everything is darkness. The place I left is a blue dot, smaller now. Smaller. My heart. A flutter in my neck.
It is too hot.
They will pull me back soon.
They will fetch their Laika.
They are not monsters.
The Molotov Cocktail 