Chapter 4 / Released Sarah, a kind, soft spoken, friendly woman with curly red hair walks through the door and they hand her my meds. “Unfortunately, the tumor was malignant. We got good margins, but it will probably come back. She has a little time though,” the vet says. “How long?” Sara asks. “Hard to say. She has a while, a year, maybe two, could be considerably more, we just don’t

This takes place like clockwork, every six months. Each time, a few months later, I give birth to another dead, frail or deformed baby that will not thrive or is destroyed by a gun blast as I watch in horror. After the last baby is thrown on a trash heap next to my cage in the backyard, I listen to my baby boy whimper his final breath. I tell him I love him and how sorry I am that I cannot save

One afternoon, after I had given up all hope of ever leaving this truck alive, the man pulls into a bumpy driveway. I look out at a rundown house in a neighborhood of shabby, neglected houses. The man makes a big show of letting me out of the truck as though he is the kindest man alive, a real humanitarian. “Welcome to Turlock,” he says to me as an older woman with wispy hair runs out of the

We are to be loaded onto the truck in our cages – stacked 3 or 4 high – the next morning in preparation for the 3-hour drive to the auction. I hope I will be at the top of the stack. Even having your cage tumble over on a hard turn is better than being on the bottom and suffering through all that rains down. I am nearly asleep on the hard wire floor of the cage. They throw blankets into our cage

This is an excerpt from my new short story, The Story of Bess. It's about my sweet dog, who left me on December 13, 2017. I still miss her terribly. A great dog, who I adopted from Norcal Boxer Rescue, Bess had a rough life at the beginning. She was so much more than a pet, and was truly story worthy. Stay tuned for the next installment.   I’m number 29. I don’t have a name, just a