Author : Harris Tobias

It was adoption day at the facility. All those humans slated for euthanasia looking so bewildered, frightened and lost. How can anyone just leave them all to die? Thork and I rolled by the glass fronts of the cages stacked three rows high. So many of them. There must have been several hundred. They stared back at us hollow eyed and distrustful. Most had given up any hope of rescue. It was so sad.

Thork and I would take them all home if we could. As it was, we had already rescued six over the years. They make such wonderful pets. So grateful to have another year or two of life. Loyal, loving and kind, there’s nothing like a mature human to make a bleem a pronk. I look at their faces. I believe I can read a lot into their expressions. These are the unwanted refuse that clutters our streets. Picked up like vermin, breeding in dark corners, mongrels the lot of them. And yet, I believe, there is a dignity in even the lowest of them. Clean them up and feed them and they are the equal of any pure bred expensive variety.

I have had nothing but good experiences from my rescue pets. Oscar was beloved by all in the years he lived with me. It broke my org to flush him but he was so broken, he was not worth fixing. To this day I don’t know how he got under my roller. But I believe that every life is special and that there is something cute and worth saving in all of them. I roll by slowly and check out their faces. I nudge Thork with my appendage and point to a female in the third row. A mature female beyond child bearing years with a soft belly and sagging breasts. Water streams from her eyes like they do when they are sad. It touches my org. “She’s the one,” I tell Thork and he rolls off to get the attendant.

The attendant expertly wraps an appendage around our female and rolls her to the front. They are so small and delicate. The attendant examines her and gives her her shots with a big needle. She lets out a little yelp of pain and he puts her in the carrier we brought. We give the attendant credits and Thork carries the human to the transporter. We will keep her in the cage with the others. They seem to like their own kind. Outside the air is cool. The human whimpers and cowers in the corner of the carrier. I smeem to Thork, “Look, she shakes. That means she likes me doesn’t it?”

“Perhaps she is frightened or cold,” Thork knows nothing about humans.

“Perhaps,” I smeem back unconvinced. “I will call her Oscar like my other one. What do you think?”

Thork smeems assent. I stick my appendage into the carrier and stroke the creature. It shrieks. I can tell it likes me.