When I saw her I knew it wouldn't last for long. She looked too used to being on her own to stick around for too much... and I wasn't sure what to do about her also. Somebody called me to show her to me and we looked at each other for a short while. She was young and common and she looked like she was waiting for someone. Which she wasn't, it was just a search for food and somebody from inside got out to bring her a cookie. She ate it and she looked ahead, like thinking where to go - straight ahead, or turn back. I gave her a pack of food and she ate it in a hurry. She was not that thin, but neither too well fed - it was an unexpected good meal and she took advantage of it, hurrying up before the offer ends.
I tried to put my belt as a collar and take her upstairs. I had no plans for her, but didn't think I could leave her down there, all alone. She got scared and she pulled off her head from the improvised collar and ran a few meters away. She stopped and she looked back straight at me.
It was not hate, neither it was fear. It was just mistrust, in its purest form. I saw her eyes and I knew I looked like she was, now, at other people and then just went away. She didn't need me and she didn't want me. Life for her is hard, but she can't trust and she doesn't want to. Probably she can't even dream of a soft pillow and of a warm home, which she never had and never will. I can...
Some wonder why I love stray dogs. It's simple - I am one of them. I do not make them humans neither I see myself as a dog - I just see that we are so much alike that it's hard to think of. Just like her, the anonymous stray dog I fed today, I walk in the world and I am all on my own. I sometimes look at the clouds and there is this desperate hope that there is somebody bigger than me who cares. And I just need a sign that somebody is looking at me now ... which never comes, and I just know that I am all alone.
This is sometimes a very overwhelming feeling... It's pointless to try to describe it, but it's the blank feeling of being totally and utterly alone. I know... generations have been preoccupied with this and they came up with gods and then with God and blablabla. But I am not religious - I lack the ability to have faith without reasoning and to trust someone who doesn't seem to be there... so I look at the world like that dog looked at me today. Me and her are the same, two unknown shadows passing on the streets of a city, whichever city might that be... sometimes having the luck of a good meal just to keep on walking.
Footsteps don't get imprinted in the asphalt. Nobody will ever know I was there, she was there ... and we just kept walking.
