“…a bad month for black dogs…”

The words echo along the deserted underground tunnel as I jump from the escalator to slink behind a pillar and wait for someone, anyone, to come. It’s true, although every month is a bad month for black dogs, January is worst. How did I come to choose the underground? Let me think, it was accidental the first time, two shouting boys chased me on the street, and I just ran into the first entrance I came to. After that it was easy, slipping down moving metal stairs, between the legs and feet of commuters, I managed to get a biscuit, a chunk of pizza, some prawn crackers and once even an ear-rub from a kind woman. But soon the feet would climb onto a train and leave me alone on the platform. Even the woman who’d whispered soft, sweet words as she rubbed my ears and throat left me. I should be used to it, I know, everyone leaves.

I spent my first weeks in a dark place with many others, young and raw, like me. My mother was there at first, I think I can remember climbing over others like me to get close to her, but I can’t be sure now. There was whimpering, yelping and it was cold, always so cold. I was taken from there in a bag and into a Christmas Day. That place was new and it was not cold, there was no mother, but a lot of sweet food. I vomited and shit everywhere and was put into another bag and left outside with Merry Christmas rubbish.

You don’t want to hear all the story, do you? It’s not a happy one, though there was one happy day, when I found a safe place next to a warm pipe in a cellar. There were others, many others, living there, small creatures with sharp teeth and long tails like worms. They ran about constantly, coming and going through holes between bricks, squeaking and blinking at me, stiff whiskers twitching. Sitting up on back legs and using front feet to hold onto food and other things, I didn’t know what. I had no food, but I ate some scraps that they left on the ground. More vomit and shit came, but before long my stomach got used to the food and I stayed by the warm pipe until my body and legs grew stronger. When the pipe became too hot, I had to find somewhere colder. That was the end of the happy time.

If someone asked me now, what would you like to happen? I would say I’d like to find my mother. I’m sure she was kind, she smelled like me and had ears and eyes like mine. If I couldn’t find her, then I’d like to find somewhere warm and safe to stay, some food that didn’t make me sick and maybe someone to rub my ears when I’m drifting off to sleep. There could be kind people every day in the underground, maybe the right one will find me soon, before January is over.