Tiny pools overflowed. Her mouth crinkled at the corners, twitching.
It hasn’t been so bad, has it? We loved you, didn’t we?
She didn’t want to. She tried to stop herself. She couldn’t help it.
Calico, pick up the pages that fell from the trash.
Falling to her dirty, naked knees, Calico whimpered, then started to howl, not even knowing why. Salty water streamed down her face, stinging her scratches. Crying completely, she gently lowered her hands on either side of the pile of printed pages. The first white sheet was all torn and soiled. The rest were wet and muddy. She scooped them up, held them tight with both arms and wailed. It could have been a baby she held. It could have been herself. No one even stopped to stare.
It’s all right, my darling, open your eyes.
For the longest time, she wouldn’t. She just bobbed slowly back and forth, eyes shut tight, but when she finally did, she saw it wasn’t so bad. The title had a word missing, but maybe someone could fix that, and the rest of the pages were pretty clear. These were the first words she’d read in the longest time. They were big and kind of silly, but they came easily to her tongue. The first few sentences tickled her head so much it made her laugh. It wasn’t bad, she thought as she stopped crying and started smiling. In fact, it was very, very good.
Some people stopped to look at her, which made her smile all the more. Excited, she stood up on a garbage can and read aloud in her clearest, strongest, most important voice. The more she read, the more they listened. Oh, a few left, but a few more stayed. The more people listened, the happier she was, until finally, she was so happy that all the voices in her head quieted down, except for the one that seemed to like her the most, and it said: