Fight, fight, fight!

The aspiring young officer smiled at the boy, the thoroughly yellow and crooked teeth doing anything but reassuring him. His heart was thumping loudly in his ears. They felt hot. All he could see was the older officer ruffling through his papers, slowly, taking his time, making sure to impress upon the boy who was in charge. Little men and their big egos. A disgust and an overwhelming rage filled him. After this is done, I never have to see any of them ever again, the dog never has to see any of them ever again. We can be free. His fingers twitched, skin turning from red to yellow around where his nails were digging into his palm. He had not cut them. He had been too focused on shaving, always remembered to shave before he went abroad. Anything helped, especially this time. Especially when he was travelling with her. He could feel her anxiety, and his was feeding hers, over and over, in a loop. His head started to tremble. He took a discreet, deep breath. The officer handed him his papers, he felt a sigh of relief loosen his nervous, twitchy muscles. 

The dog, his baby, had been silent all this time. She probably understood the importance of what was going on. Probably understood what he wanted for her. What he wanted from her. She was very smart. This one time, she had heard him crying, and had started whining to be let out from her crate. He had opened her, wiping away tears, and she had jumped onto him, and would not stop licking him till he had laughed. He made to move forward, not too fast, not too nervously, anything that the man could use as an excuse to deny the dog, anything the man would use to demonstrate the power he held. That was what it was all about. Power. 

The man slowly started to get up from his rickety wooden chair. It creaked, the boy stopped. For the first time since they had gotten here, the man actually looked at the dog he was supposed to be allowing, or preventing from leaving the country. He walked around the cage, slowly, measured, every footstep like the thud of the boy’s now icy heart. His fingers were calm, by his side, the raging, passionate anger turned into an icy fury that he was at the mercy of a man like this. An anger and a fury that were the reasons he was leaving, the reasons he could not live in, could not survive in, let alone thrive in this culture. Mentally, emotionally, physically.

Dust hung like stars in the grand hall. He could see the check in counters just a few feet away, tantalizing, he could see the lights up on the high ceilings, could see the sun starting to peek through the dirty windows, drowsy light yawning. The air smelled of bad oversweet chai, samosas that were too oily, he could hear footsteps in the lounge just past security. Most people had checked in, the next batch would come later. A few curious stragglers were looking at the cage, trying to see the ‘beast’ inside. As if they were at a zoo.

For the first time since he had arrived, the man spoke. For the first time since he had arrived, the man smiled. Proud, beaming. Eyes glinting. “Are you taking her to Amreeka to fight?”

He could not believe his ears. If he could have strangled the man, right there and then, he would have. A three month old baby that barely weighed thirty pounds. And here, this fucking idiot was excited and proud about a pet dog going to the US to fight?