Ashamed To Be Human...

I am a huge animal lover. My whole life I have had animals around me and as I child I would constantly be bringing a baby bird, puppy or kitten home to my Mum that I would find hurt or abandoned on the street.
I grew up loving my dogs as if they were my Brothers and Sisters and have had dogs all my adult life and the first thing I did when I moved into my house here in Brasil was to get a puppy: my lazy Labrador "Bridget Jones" soon followed by one more: "Lucy Diamond" a tiny black mongrel, no bigger than my hand at the time, who "found me" on a busy road near my home when I was returning from shopping. I saw her and we connected... she seemed to know me, she ran up to me so happy and I loved her instantly and carried her home with me to keep. I believe that she is an "old soul" as she has an affinity with me and I truly believe that she is a reincarnation of a loved one... you can call me crazy but I really believe that. She looks at me with the eyes of someone who has known me and loved me all of my life...

My "family" increased to three last year when I bought my little baby "Minnie Osbourne" a tiny black and tan Chihuahua, who is adult now but still no bigger than my hand. She is adorable and spends every waking hour with me and is also a film-lover just like me, staying glued to the television screen when we are watching Dvd's - her favourites are romantic comedies.

Dogs never let you down, they will be there for you long after a false friend has dissappeared and long after that argument that you had with your Sister.
If you have an "angry" or "sad" day they will still greet you with a wagging tail and a lick on the hand or face to make everything better. Their love is unconditional and I can never understand why there are so many people that choose to mistreat them.

So imagine my sadness last week when Lucy was barking and crying in the kitchen after hearing something outside... I had heard the sound of a car stopping and then speeding off again...
I opened the kitchen door and let her out through the varanda into the garden... She was going crazy and barking at something outside in the quiet little road that sits alongside my house.
I couldn't see anything as it was very dark, the time was around midnight, so I went inside to get the torch to see what it was.
There outside my house was a cardboard box and as Lucy was sniffing and crying two adorable tiny puppies, no older than 4 weeks, came looking out of the box very nervously. I got my keys and rushed outside to get them and bring them into the house, horrified at the fact that some cruel bastard, or bastards, had abandoned them in the first weeks of their little lives on a dark quiet road, but of course they must have known that a dog lover lived in this house...

One was completely black and the other was black and white, very tiny and looking very scared but very happy to see me, so happy in fact that the black and white one wouldn't stop crying with excitement as if to say "Thank God! Please Help Us!" The black one was more shy, sitting in the corner and looking at me with a face that said "Thank You" - a look that could truly break your heart... it did mine.

The first thing I did was to get some spare food bowls that I have and give them food and water... they were absolutely starving and ate two whole bowls of dog food! and also drank 2 whole bowls of water... and these are big bowls! I was cursing the people who had left them outside my garden and feeling very, very sad that people can be so barbaric and unloving... I was angry!!! Not only had these people abandoned them but they left them without feeding them first.

They both did some little poo's on the kitchen floor and it was full of worms... so my next stage began: worming tablets that I always keep in the house, and gave to them both.
They were both very dirty and very skinny, but even so they looked healthy and had a nice sparkle in their eyes, nothing that the worming tablets, some good quality dog food and a warm bath couldn't fix.
Everywhere I was going they were following me, the black and white one still crying to me while the black one followed faithfully behind him, their two little bums wiggling as they walked. I was talking to them and telling them "Everything is going to be o.k. now, you're safe"

Anyway I got some old towels and took them into the bathroom to give them a warm shower with puppy flea shampoo and as I was washing them reality set in... how can I keep these beautiful babies? (yes I already had it firmly set in my mind that I was keeping them) when I already have three "Daughters" of my own? As adorable as they were I had to think rationally as three dogs are a lot of work already, cost quite a bit to feed each month and not to mention having to put them in a dog hotel when I travel... which is a lot of times each year.
How big would they grow? They aren't going to stay tiny like this forever... but my heart was breaking at the thought of all this as the connection, the bond, was already growing between us (true dog-lovers will fully understand this)
My mind was in turmoil: What to do? What to do?

Then I remembered my friend who owns the dog hotel where my girls stay when I travel...
I phoned her and asked if she had room for two more little puppies that had just been abandoned outside my garden. She said that she already has 56 dogs of her own... yes you heard me correctly: 56 dogs! all pets! (mostly strays, hurt or abandoned dogs) but remember that this is a huge dog hotel in the countryside with acres of land...
Anyway she agreed to take them and try to get them adopted, which I said must really be together as these two little beauties need each other after being abandoned so cruelly and they were also so close; following each other everywhere and "kissing" each other constantly, which was a joy to watch.

As I waited for my friend to arrive at the house I spent my last half an hour with these two little babies who had unexpectedly come into my life on that dark, cold night. Many thoughts were going through my head... but the constant thought was "Am I abandoning these two adorable puppies? Are they being abandoned for the second time in one night?" God I felt terrible! But, although I felt heartbroken that I had to deal with it rationally and could not have five dogs in my house, I felt that I had done a good thing... I had given these puppies a good start in life, they had had a lot of food and water, they had their first dose of worming tablets and also a warm bath and were climbing all over me as I sat on the kitchen floor and played with them for those final minutes.

My friend arrived and I got a clean cardboard box, put a blanket inside and gave her the two plastic food bowls that I had used for them and off they went on their next phase of their little lives...
"I'll bring the bowls and blanket back to you tomorrow" she said
"No way!" I said "They are for them!"

But there is a happy ending! Now seven days later they are living with a family who have adopted them! In the countryside with a big garden, and are getting lots of love - the love that they should have got since the very beginning of their lives, but I have hope for them and believe that they are going to be alright.
I'm just happy that whoever abandoned them decided to leave them outside my garden as some other person may not have been so kind as to take them in. Maybe they could have been unseen in the dark and could have even got knocked down by a car or killed by some wild animal.

What I can't stop thinking since that night is "Why?" - Why would anyone be so cruel as to abandon any animal? Let alone these two beautiful little puppies who only had love in their hearts?! Would they have abandoned their own child on a dark roadside in the first weeks of it's life, knowing nothing about whether it would survive or not? What kind of people exist in this world?!
One thing I know is that I don't count myself among you...

It's a good thing that I didn't see or meet the person who left them outside my garden, and who sped off into the night, as I would most probably have done something that I would have regretted afterwards...
No, it's a good thing that these "humans" will remain nameless and faceless... however I have a name for them:
Shameless, Worthless Fucking Low-Lifes.

"It's A Fool Who Plays It Cool" - A Short Story

His heart was racing, he felt his pulse vibrating like a big bass drum all through his body, he felt on top of the world and found himself smiling day and night thinking only about this new-found happiness...

"I think I love her" Jude thought as he sat on the bed thinking about her smile and looking forward to seeing her again the next day, in fact he couldn't sleep as he wanted the next day to be here now.
He lay awake remembering their first weeks together; the touches, the smiles, the laughter, the conversation, the kisses, the love-making. Everything was perfect, so perfect in fact that he felt a little afraid to think about how happy he was as not to jinx this new found love and happiness that had flown into his life like a welcome summer breeze after a long and dark winter.

Jude had had a hard time this last decade, a decade of loss, grief, broken relationships, sadness and loneliness. If anyone truly deserved to be happy it was Jude, he had enough years of bad luck and darkness...
He honestly thought that God had truly been testing him all these years and he was now hoping that, finally, he would be allowed to live and love with happiness and laughter in his world instead of all the black days that he had experienced in the past.
Some days he would look up to the sky and say "So come on God... what have you got for me this week?! Can't you just leave me alone? Please! What have I done?!"

So as he lay there in the moonlit glow of his bedroom he smiled and thought "So this is happiness... this is love..." But it wasn't just love for his new girlfriend, it was love for himself too, as he had rediscovered himself and he loved what he saw and felt within his heart, within his soul. He loved who he was, who he had become through all these years of life experience, these tests that he had had to endure.
Maybe his last true love, who he had nursed through a long and terrible illness, had sent this beautiful girl to him when he really needed her. After all just a few weeks before he was falling into another deep depression and questioning his God why he deserved such heartache.

Jude's life changed a few weeks before when he had been sitting in a London café watching the world go by when all of a sudden his eyes locked onto a girl with a luminous smile, so luminous that her heart could be seen through that sparkle in her eyes as she looked into his.
"Should I say hello?" Jude thought.... "Best not to..." he suggested to himself as he remembered all the past misfortunes and not feeling at all confident within himself.
"Hello, I'm Lucy!" she said as she approached him and reached out her hand to place within his. "I'm Jude... hello! nice to meet you!" he said nervously "Hey Jude! I love that song!" she said as she laughed, scanning his face and hair with her eyes. "Yeah I get that a lot!!" he laughed.

So just like a magical meeting written within a tacky novel they spent the whole afternoon together laughing, talking and enjoying each other's company in that London café, drinking endless cups of tea and coffee so that they would never have to leave their table.

Now, back up to date and three weeks later, Jude was lying sleepless in his bed thinking about the following day that he would be seeing Lucy. He was thinking about how he had spent ten years being shut off from the world, how he had closed his eyes and his heart to the thought of love and vowed never to be with anyone again... but sometimes when you least expect it fate lends an unexpected hand and sends you someone wonderful, an angel to save you...

Sometimes we can close our eyes to people and realise that we must have let a lot of the good ones go, but maybe all of that was meant to be as life was already planned out and the Gods had two hearts in mind that were destined to meet at a London café on a cloudy autumn day...

The next day Jude raced to Lucy's apartment, arriving there out of breath and sweating profusely as he rang her doorbell. She opened the door and they kissed and held onto each other so tight
"I missed you so much!" she said "Me too" he said "I have something so important to tell you! I have to get it out" she looked at him nervously and said "What is it?! My God tell me!!"
"I'm in love with you! I've never loved anyone as much as I realise that I love you! I was lying awake last night just thinking about you and how happy you make me!" he exclaimed to her with pride in his heart, a pride and love that he had always read about but had never really felt.
"I love you so much too!! I was worried to say it first! I didn't know how you felt about it..." Lucy said as her smile spread across her face and through to her heart.

They kissed passionately there on the doorstep. Jude felt like there was an orchestra's symphony playing throughout his body and felt it right through to his bones.
They looked into each other's eyes, took each other's hand and walked into their future together...


"Hey Jude, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better.
Remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better."

"New Day" - Original Poetry By Me

New life,
New day,
New wonder,
New way.

Old life,
Goodbye,
Old times,
Don't cry.

Now happy,
Now true,
So loving,
With you.

Pain gone,
Hurt hidden,
Past violence,
All ridden.

New day,
All true,
New life,
Thank you!

© 10/2008

"No Forwarding Address" - A Short Story

"Help me! Please God help me!" she said as she ran frantically through the house looking for a way out "I need to get out of here! I need some air! I need to breathe in some life again!"

This was Polly, a distraught married woman in her thirties, finally realizing that after all her ambitions and dreams that she had had in the past she was to be just one more lonely housewife, a mother to 3 children, a wife to a cold and distant husband who no longer spoke to her, and a slave to her boring daily routine.

"What to do, what to do..." she said to herself as she cleaned the kitchen floor "Surely my life is worth more than being a maid to everyone and appreciated by nobody... I need to escape from all of this" She looked at the time and remembered that today was a shopping day. No, not a wonderful day to take time out to go shopping for something nice for herself; those shopping trips that she had enjoyed so much with her best friends years ago, the same friends that had now drifted away into happily married life, but no this was food shopping in one more busy supermarket full of clones of herself in dowdy comfortable clothes and faces without smiles.

"I used to have a career, I used to have a life, I used to be someone" she said to herself sadly, then upon remembering her children she felt guilty of having such selfish thoughts and continued mopping the floor.

But the thoughts won't stay away; however much she loved her children, however much she still loved her husband, despite his fondness for any woman that gives him a simple compliment, women that have come and gone over the years, those affairs that Polly had known about but kept everything quiet within herself, thinking that everything would maybe someday change and that he would magically become a better man, that he would see this wonderful girl that he met years ago and become a better husband. She finally accepted in her mind and heart that she had been day-dreaming all these years and that he will never change, she's simply invisible to him now.

"Enough, enough!" she said as she stopped what she was doing "My days are always the same, I am always here looking after the house, taking care of the children, alone in everything and I can't take it anymore!"

She went upstairs to the marital bedroom, the same bedroom where she had waited for years to be satisfied by her husband, to be pampered, loved and adored by him but to no avail, and started packing some clothes into an old dusty brown suitcase, a suitcase that was battered around the edges and showing the signs of life, not unlike herself. The same suitcase that was last used for a romantic weekend some six or seven years ago... "This is good, this is change, this is what I must do" she said as she started planning in her mind everything that she had always thought about doing on every single lonely night of her marriage.

She made some phone calls... none of them to her husband. She booked a plane ticket with her credit card, she phoned her mother and asked her to pick up the children from school and take care of them. She packed everything that had sentimental value into the suitcase, closed it up and left it by the front door. A taxi would be arriving in ten minutes...

Two nights later her husband arrived home and found her note on the kitchen table, together with her worn-down wedding ring:

"I've had enough, I need a life, I need love, I need to be held again and made to feel special, not someone who is special because they cook the dinner or clean the house but to be special because of who I am, who I really am, who I was and who I will be again once I get out of this ice-cold marriage... I want to feel as special as you made all those women feel who you slept with over the years. The children are with my mum, you have no commitments, as usual, so it shouldn't disrupt your life too much... It's time for me to put myself first. Yes, at first you will say that I am a lousy mother, a lousy wife, a good for nothing whore who abandoned you all, but after some months you will finally sit down and realize that you have been all those things for many, many years, it's just that you have been the acceptable male version of all those things. So good luck, you're going to need it big boy.... and maybe it's time for you to get a maid."

P.S: "Don't ask my mum where I have gone, she doesn't know... I've left no forwarding address" - Polly.

"With You I'll Grow Old" - Original Poetry By Me

My life was in pieces,
I was broken in two,
My mind was in tatters,
Didn't know what to do.

My life was a memory,
Fell in a black hole,
I felt just like nothing,
So I played out that role.

Then one day I met you,
You made my life shine,
You gave back my laughter,
And said you were mine.

I no longer have black days,
From now on they're all gold,
With you I am home,
And with you I'll grow old.

© 10/2008

"The Hope Of All My Tomorrow" - Original Poetry By Me

Standing on the sidelines,
Watching his life go by,
All those missed opportunities,
Just makes me wonder why?

Why sit and waste a lifetime?
Get out and live each day,
See the beauty of the world,
Smile and make your way.

Life is an action adventure,
With many ups and downs,
Filled with tears and laughter,
And sideways smirks and frowns.

So I'm busy writing my book of life,
There's no more time for sorrow,
I do it, I feel it, I say it,
And with the hope of all my tomorrow...
© 10/2008