an original piece by Dejana Talis -not to be used without permission- Written for genre_challenge, April 2006 (Angst) Animals (Puppy). "These things happen." Her carefully-prepared words sounded hollow as her daughter knelt beside the motionless lump of damp fur. As the girl stroked the lifeless body lying in the mud beside the river, her mother hardened her heart resolutely. It was what needed to be done. The child had always wanted a puppy, but it was impossible. Her mother could scarcely afford to put food on the table, let alone provide for a dog. She had explained this time and again, but it never stopped the plaintive pleading. When scraps of food began disappearing, the mother knew. Soon she caught her daughter feeding a stray puppy in the backyard. There wasn’t much that could be done at that point. She could never allow the girl to keep the dog, and it would never stop coming around now that it knew this house as a source of food. So, while her daughter was at school, the woman did what needed to be done. Now the child stared up at her, pain and loss mixed with an expression of shock and horror. The woman had arranged the scene very carefully, but it seemed it was not perfect enough. Somehow her daughter knew the horrible truth. The woman stuck to her story, speaking of fate and chance. That evening, the girl ran away from home. The words of the policeman rang in her mother’s ears as he responded to her spoken wonderings of why, why would her child do this? "These things happen." This piece of original fiction is the sole property of Dejana Talis.