Hm.

This morning I found a dog under the bed.

I try to kick it out, but it comes back in. It’s raining. I give up and set it on the living room floor.

It’s what looks to be around 6-7 months old. It has golden, matted fur that’s growing in it’s bright blue eyes. 

How did it get into my apartment?

I don’t bother to try to wash it off- it’s not worth the water bill. I’ve been trying to pay off everything, but I realized shortly after my mother died that she hadn’t paid a single penny for the 6 months we’ve lived here on anything but drugs and alcohol. I also found a few crumpled papers in her bed-side table; divorce papers. 

My father died 10 months back. We had lived in a shabby hotel he was working at, but once he died we were on the streets. The warm alleyways of Los Angeles weren’t very hard to live on, they were free, but my mom was able to seduce the landlord at our current apartments, and boom. Suddenly we had a penthouse for the cost of a bottom floor room with an old angry couple for neighbors. Eventually, he found out my mom was crazy and blah blah blah. Long story short, my mom and I were downgraded to a bottom floor room with- you guessed it- an old angry couple for neighbors.

She and dad must’ve been fighting.

That explains the yelling.

Under the bed where it was staying, there’s a few lakes of pee and one grotesque pile of feces. 

Well, that explains the smell. 

I stand up and sit on the bed. It’s the type of bed you would get for a little kid, but she wasn’t home much so I don’t think she minded. The walls are blank and the bedside table came with the apartment. I start back into the living room and stumble over the dog. It’s always so dark in here. She took out the lightbulb and smashed it when she was in one of her fits, and never bothered to replace it.

The dog must’ve been in here for a while. Since we moved in, I always slept on the couch- didn’t even go in my moms room; I hate the smell of sour liquor. That routine hasn’t changed even when she died, so I have no clue how long the dog had been playing bunker under her bed.

It looks like it hasn’t eaten in weeks, and is about the size of my forearm.

Leave it to my mom to save an abandoned puppy and starve it to death.

 I’m no animal expert, but I’m pretty sure that means it needs food. I pile it into my arms, trying not to inhale the 7 species of fleas surrounding it, and take it to the kitchen. I feed it the cold remanence of my breakfast and chop the knots off its back, belly, and out of its eyes.

Once the clouds finally appease their anger, I open my front door to walk it, not bothering to change out of my pajamas or brush my hair. A white paper with red letters taped to the door catches my eye.

An eviction notice.